


Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

by sweetestsight



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: John is either will or elizabeth depending on how you look at it and that's all I'm saying, M/M, Pirate AU, Sexual Content, Violence, heavily based on Pirates of the Caribbean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:46:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 55,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22439740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetestsight/pseuds/sweetestsight
Summary: When John Deacon is eleven years old he meets a strange boy in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. When he's nineteen he loses him.
Relationships: John Deacon/Brian May/Freddie Mercury/Roger Taylor
Comments: 181
Kudos: 109





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Big shoutout to everyone who helped make this possible! You all know who you are. For all the idea-bouncing, brainstorming, hearing my rants and ruminating on plot with me, thank you so much. You all inspire me.
> 
> Title is from a George Harrison song :-) Please don't share this with any actors, musicians or anybody who might be affiliated with the people mentioned here! Love you all <3

The air is thick and humid with the smell of saline and beeswax.

He can hear water dripping nearby above the familiar deep creaking of a ship rocking on the waves. It underscores the gentle plucking of guitar strings, the sound distorted and watery as if in a dream and the melody heart-wrenchingly sad.

He tries to open his eyes but finds that he can’t; a moment later, the darkness at the back of his mind rises up like a wave, inky bubbles dissolving his consciousness and pulling him back under into sleep.

And he dreams.

“Hear these words, for I have a story,” Roger whispers to him in the dead of night. 

They’re crammed together in John’s bed on his quarters in the ship—right next to the captain’s, a luxury preserved only for nobility and status. They’re four weeks into the Atlantic crossing, now. Roger, having arrived on the ship only a week ago, is still fresh enough to be awed by John’s wealth and yet proud enough to pretend not to be. 

They’re becoming fast friends. 

Maybe it was due to the nature of Roger’s arrival—mysterious, violent, and something that the adults on the ship tried not to speak of when Roger and John were around as if they thought the boys would forget it entirely. It’s been only a week, but already Roger is a fixture in his life; already John is sure that the nature of his arrival is something he’ll never forget.

He’d seen the flag first: a union jack floating in the water, torn and soiled. He’d watched as it had drifted by the ship before getting lost in the fog.

The plank had come next, the boy on top, sprawled out and looking dead as could be.

“Man overboard!” John had shouted. “There’s a boy in the water!”

Sailors had come running across the deck; his own father had followed, but when he tried to pull John away he’d resisted.

“You heard the boy!” the captain shouted. “Man overboard! Haul him up!”

“Best leave him be,” one of the sailors muttered. “In this sea you never know what you’re pulling aboard.”

John had frowned. “What do you mean?”

The sailor laughed. “These are cursed waters, boy,” he said as two men climbed down the side rails of the ship, beginning work hauling the plank up. “Pirates roam here; an armada of them to challenge even the Royal Navy itself.”

“Pirates are nothing to fear,” another sailor piped up. “All of them get what’s coming.” At John’s look of confusion he grinned, all teeth. “A nice scenic stroll to the gallows at dawn is what they deserve.”

“Hang them all if you want,” the first replied. “It won’t make a difference. Not even death seems to keep them down. They’re like rats. We should be trying to poison them like the vermin they are; set fire to every last one of them.”

“That’s enough of that,” John’s father had cut in swiftly. “There will be no discussion of piracy around my son. Please. He’s just a boy.”

The sailor ducked his head slightly. “Apologies, governor. I was out of turn.”

Even as he said it his face was alight in red, growing brighter and brighter. His eyes went wide at once, his lips barely parting to murmur, “Oh, heaven above.” John turned around and froze.

A ship was in flames not far away, a faint smolder. It wasn’t a recent wreck. It couldn’t have been, but it wasn’t old either. As they watched one of the masts broke in half and fell into the water.

“Pirates,” the sailor muttered, wandering off. “Mark my words.”

“Launch the longboats!” the captain shouted. John turned to see the plank make contact with the deck finally, ropes falling away. The boy on top did not stir. “Search for survivors!”

John drifted closer to the boy even as people ran to and fro, launching boats and calling orders. The boy they’d rescued had been all but forgotten, left alone to lie quietly on the deck.

John knelt behind him and gently touched his cheek. It was cold. His long blonde hair was crystallized with salt, matted and tangled.

His eyes flickered beneath his eyelashes. All at once he rolled over rapidly, retching out a lungful of saltwater and coughing viciously.

“Easy,” John said, holding his hair back until the boy collapsed again, chest heaving. “You’re alright.”

“Where am I?”

“This is the HMS _Dauntless._ We’re nearly to America. What’s your name?”

His eyes opened finally. They were a bright, brilliant blue, more vibrant than the sea and twice as deep. “Roger.”

“And your family name?”

He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut.

John swallowed. “I’m sorry. I’m John. You’re safe now, Roger. I promise. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

But that had been a week ago—one week, and Roger bounced back hard as anything.

He spent that time building a space for himself within John’s own, and they’re practically attached at the hip nowadays. They run around the deck of the ship and send the crew yelling and frowning after them; they bother John’s father, they spit off the side rails, they create chaos when there’s none to find, and at night they curl up together and tell ghost stories.

“Hear these words, for I have a story,” Roger whispers to him in the dead of night, and John snorts.

“Tell it then, if you’re so keen.”

Roger clears his throat dramatically. “Once upon a time there was a boy.”

“A bold beginning,” John sasses. He’s just turned eleven, which means he’s now old enough to have learned what sass is. 

The ship creaks as it rocks on a wave, and Roger is jostled closer to him on the mattress. “Shut up,” he giggles, voice stifled so that they don’t get caught staying up past their bedtime. “Once upon a time there was a boy, and he was a son of a fisherman. But he loved the fish so much that he couldn’t kill them, and so he never caught any fish at all. He just spent his time gazing at the sea until one day he realized he’d fallen in love with it and all its creatures.” 

“He sounds like a horrible fisherman.” 

“Maybe he was,” Roger snorts. “He fell so in love with it that he only came to land briefly, and only to get supplies. But the woman who ran the trading post at the harbor fell in love with him—“

“Was she pretty?” 

“She was pretty, but she was secretly a witch. She asked him to stay with her, but he told her he could not leave his true love. She became jealous, and she cursed him to sail for eternity and only see the ocean’s cruelty—to be tied to the sea, for that which leaves the sea must always eventually return, be it water or be it life.” His voice has gone crisp as if he’s quoting someone; as if he knows the lines by heart. He swallows before continuing, “And he sailed and he sailed without an end.”

“This isn’t a very happy story, is it?”

“No. That’s the way they tell it, though.”

The ship rocks, up and down and up. It’s a long way across the Atlantic. John wonders where they are in the night; whether they’re somewhere in the middle or maybe closer to land. He wonders if they’ll be sailing forever, too. The Caribbean has become the heaven to their purgatory. 

“I don’t like the ending,” he says into the darkness. 

Roger scoots a little closer to him, all childish limbs and premature aloofness. “No,” he whispers blandly. “I don’t much like it, either.”

He ruminates on that story often; at first in wonder, then in a bitter darkness.

He thinks about it when they finally make landfall in Port Royal; he thinks about it running through the dirt streets with Roger by his side, thinks about it while he’s trying to squirm away from the tailor during suit fittings, waits about it in long days of boarding school, and then finishing school, and then tutorship that qualifies for university this far from England.

_That which leaves the sea must always return._

He thinks about it while he pretends to read Machiavelli as he waits in his spacious room, the Caribbean breeze rolling in hot and sticky and slow, the moon rising over the harbor.

He jumps as feet thump against his balcony and then grins, his eyes not leaving the pages.

“ _The Prince_?” Roger reads from the cover of his book. “Is that supposed to be about you, then?”

“I’m no prince,” John murmurs. “Besides, he’s a real lowlife. You’d know if you’d paid any attention in school.”

“Thought you were into lowlifes,” Roger rasps, leaning low and into his space and flicking the book neatly closed.

John looks up at him, doing a good job of pretending to be exasperated. It’s always hard to pretend to be upset when Roger is around, and Roger knows that well enough. He stares right back, his bright eyes dark and half lidded, flicking down lazily to study John’s mouth. His blouse is halfway unbuttoned and rolled up at the sleeves, and John studiously ignores the urge to let his eyes wander past the open collar.

“I didn’t think you were into princes,” John counters.

Roger grins at him, all teeth. “Into nerds, at least.”

“My marks are abysmal, thanks to you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Careful, love,” Roger chides. “Big fancy words like that? Now, how should a lowlife make a lick of sense out of that?”

“You’re after a lick of something, alright,” John mutters, stifling a grin.

“Lick of the cane?” He clasps his hands theatrically. “Oh, please don’t punish me, mister, I’ll be good.”

John stands swiftly, the few inches he’d gained from his last growth spurt letting him tower over Roger as he steps closer until they’re chest to chest. “Roger,” he murmurs. “Shut up.”

He can feel Roger smiling when he kisses him just like he can feel his contented sigh. Roger hums as he wraps his arms around his neck, the cool fingers of one hand dipping below the back of his collar to graze against the overheated skin there teasingly as he walks John backward toward his bed.

John hums against his mouth, pulling away slightly and then gasping when Roger takes it as an opportunity to brush abruptly reverent kisses down his neck. “They’re having a meeting down the hall,” he gets out, voice barely a whisper.

Roger grins against his skin. “What, you don’t fancy the archduke of the West Indies walking in on the governor’s son getting sucked off by a vagrant?”

“Roger,” he gasps, and he isn’t even sure if he means it in reprimand or praise. “You’ll have to be quiet.”

“Worry about yourself,” Roger replies, and he laughs.

He’s just about to haul Roger back in for another kiss when he hears it: a low boom, followed by a faint bang.

_Boom. Crash._

They both pause, waiting. John licks his lips. “Was that—”

_Boom. Crash._

Roger swallows. “Cannon fire,” he whispers.

_Boom. Crash_. A smattering of screams, faint and far in the distance.

All at once he’s pushing Roger away and lurching to the window. He sees it in the harbor, barely a shadow of a ship, lighting up briefly as it looses another—

“You need to get to the fort,” Roger says. “Now. Take your family with you, and any of the advisors. Go.”

John shakes his head. “Not if you’re not coming with me.”

“I’m going to town. I have people I need to—”

“No way in hell, Roger.”

“John, will you just do this for me? Please?” Roger’s eyes are as wide as the moon, his lovely face drawn and serious in a way John hasn’t seen it in nearly a decade. It breaks his heart.

But he doesn’t want to think about that. He can’t think about that. That night is locked away in the furthest corners of his mind, never to be touched. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

That which leaves the sea must always return, be it a water, be it life, or be it a boy.

He can only think about himself now, here in the comforting cradle of his hammock below deck. He can only think about his own journey back to the sea. He can only think now about how, in the end, the pull had been as impossible to resist as the urge to run, to explore and find and understand.

He thinks about destiny often. He thinks about his education. He was supposed to inherit his father’s post one day. Instead he’s here on his own personal odyssey, drifting aimlessly with the currents. It hasn’t been long enough yet for the admiral to wonder why one of his ships is missing. It hasn’t been long enough yet for anyone to miss them back home, and yet John knows that as soon as they dock and their superiors learn what happened, the entire crew will be facing the gallows.

He wonders if this is what he was made for; if this is what he was meant to do.

He’s never been a particularly stellar sailor, or even a very good soldier. He was never cut out for the navy, as much of a stepping stone into government as it is.

“I didn’t take you for a navy man,” his father had said over dinner, and he’d been right. John had lasted only one year in the navy before it had all gone to shit.

It had been a mutiny.

It hadn’t even been John’s fault, either, which was what made it so ironic that he’d been suddenly pulled into the middle. No, it hadn’t been him, it had been a _boy_ , barely more than a child and the only man on the ship younger than John himself. It had been a boy named Harris, a boy who quickly became his friend, a boy with hair just so slightly off-golden and eyes with just a shade too much grey in them that sometimes John’s own eyes watered just looking at him.

Harris, who reminded him so strongly of someone else with his carefree heart and iron will.

“You know the captain doesn’t care about us,” Harris murmured into the darkness between their hammocks in the dead of night. “He’s not right. Ratty says he keeps hearing him muttering to himself in the middle of the night. Utter madness—holding Davy Jones to his bidding, capturing the goddess of the sea—fool’s errands, John. Myths, and it’s going to be our lives on the line to chase down his fever dreams. He’s not right.”

“Maybe, but we can’t do anything about it.”

“Like hell.” Harris was silent for a long beat. “Hell, he hates our bloody guts. You can’t deny that. He’d sooner be whipping us if it didn’t leave marks. Doherty is the last straw.”

“Doherty was stealing rations for his own use,” John murmured back. “You know that as well as I do.”

“And that’s punishable by a gunshot to the forehead and a toss over the rail?”

John was silent at that, worrying his lip in the darkness.

“Help us. With you on our side we could even get the admiral involved. It doesn’t have to be mutiny. We can lodge a formal complaint, if that’s what you want.”

John shook his head. “No. I can’t get involved.

And Harris had sighed, a short puff of air.

But it had all gone to shit so much faster than expected, and he can’t help but replay the memory over and over and over.

It had been hot and dry that day.

It had been hot and dry, his collar sticking to his neck from the sweat beading there, Harris’ face clammy where he was kneeled before John on the deck, his wide blue eyes trained on John’s shoes. The crowd of sailors around them had been practically vibrating with pent up rage and nerves, the officers shifting nervously on their feet.

All John could do was look at Harris’ face. Harris looked up at him finally, his eyes shiny. The captain was hovering over his shoulder, smiling grimly, his pistol holster empty. The gun’s mother-of-pearl grip was cold in John’s hand and heavier than it should’ve been.

Harris clenched his jaw. Harris’ eyes filled with fire. He nodded once, then again like he was psyching himself up for it, like he was egging John on. Behind him, the captain’s smile widened.

And John raised his gun and pulled the trigger.

But the memory fades away just as all storms eventually do; just as waves ebb and flow and ebb. The mutiny-gone-wrong-gone-right-again had been horrible, but six hours later he’d watched the men scrub the deck clean of blood. He’d helped them, and when he’d wrung his rag over the side of the ship the dirty water had stained his hands red. Eight hours later the sun had been setting, the deck sparkling, and the men had gathered there with a map and plotted their next course. Ten hours later he’d been the only one on deck, manning the helm in the dead of night, watching the stars shift as they sailed south toward a new destination.

These are distant tides.

It’s been a week now—one week that they’ve been sailing without a captain.

It takes him a moment to get his bearings. The swaying of his hammock helps—a familiar motion, a grounding motion. The very last rays of daylight are sneaking in through a crack in the boards of the ceiling, the one that drips insistently on rainy nights.

He’s on his ship.

He rolls out of his hammock slowly and tugs his boots on before heading above deck. It’s all but deserted, the brunt of the crew settling into the galley and getting ready to turn in for the night. Only those on the night watch are up at all, tightening lines and getting ready for a long shift.

The sun sets as he’s climbing the stairs to the quarterdeck. It goes with a flash of green; the great fiery ball of it dips below the horizon and the sky is washed with emerald for just one split second, brilliant and blinding. Just as fast it’s replaced by the washed-out orange of dusk.

“You see that once in a lifetime,” Harris says from behind the wheel. He moves over to make room for John as he approaches, but John waves him off and turns to the navigation table, digging his compass out of his pocket and propping it up on the map.

“See what?” he asks.

“The green flash.” Harris gestures vaguely toward the horizon, and John follows his gaze. “They say it means a soul has returned from the dead.”

John tears his eyes away from the horizon and returns to his map. The bubble in his compass is moving gently with the rocking of the ship. “Who told you that?”

“Just something I heard from one of the guys. You think the captain’s coming back to finish the job?”

“That’s not funny,” John says, though he smiles wryly as he does.

Harris scoffs out a laugh, silent for a long moment. “It should be you,” he says after a beat. “They want it to be you.”

“To do what?”

“To be the new captain.”

John shakes his head. “I’m not a captain.”

“You give the orders. You already command us. You choose our course.”

“They’re not orders. I’m giving direction in the interim. That’s all.”

“John, you shot him.”

John whips around and meets his eyes—blue, not the bright blue John is looking for but a greyer shade, and it’s only because of that that he catches himself. “I’m not your captain. Choose someone else.”

“We can’t just _choose,_ ” Harris argues.

John shakes his head and turns around. His fingers move back across the wheel, wood warm and smooth in his hands, already becoming an old friend. “You always have a choice,” he says. “Get some rest, alright? Your shift is over.”

“Yes, captain,” Harris says glibly.

“I’m not—Harris!”

Harris just grins over his shoulder before scampering below-deck.

John sighs. He ties off the wheel—they're barely moving anyway, just drifting along with a tropical current--and turns around to the table on which the astrolabe rests.

_It’s time for you to do a little growing up, Johnny boy. Make a choice. Do you stand with your country?_

He didn't have the most blood on his hands—the officers had all been shot in the ensuing skirmish, and the Captain's was far from the only body to be pushed overboard into the water once the smoke had cleared—but John has possibly the most significant.

Why that makes him a choice for Captain elect, he isn't quite sure.

Night descends on the ship rapidly, and with it comes the night’s eerie silence. The only sound at all is the crackle of the candle wicks and the creaking of the masts. Somewhere a pulley is clanking against metal rhythmically.

The silence puts him on edge; it has ever since they first charted this course. These waters are distant and different than those at home. Things don’t quite make sense here. Whirlpools spin in reverse and the sky is alien. The tide runs warm.

He’s seen things that he has no way to explain.

He’s seen compasses spinning round and round, never finding north. He’s seen people swimming and laughing in glowing water in the middle of the ocean long after the light faded on the horizon. He’s seen a ship sailing underwater, crossing just below _Queen Elizabeth’s_ hull before disappearing again. He’s seen great tentacles gently tracing the portholes at night.

He runs his fingers over the wheel hard enough to feel any remaining moisture on them be immediately absorbed by the salt-encrusted wood. A cold breeze startles him, parting the stagnant warm air of the tropics.

It's only for the fact that he sensed it early that he doesn't jump out of his skin when he turns and finds a man standing before him.

"John Deacon," the man says.

His voice is soft and his eyes are inconsolably, tragically sad. Saltwater clings to his lips and his collar. Droplets hang from the lush curls clouding below his trifold hat. He's dressed all in black, all of it looking vaguely sea-sprayed in a way the weather doesn't quite warrant.

The night itself seems to hold its breath. It must be a dream, or some sort of hallucination; there’s no way it isn’t a dream. John blinks, but the man doesn’t move.

The man’s eyes turn somehow even sadder. “Do you feel dead?” he asks. 

“No,” John says numbly. “No, but I'm not sure I feel alive.”

The man nods once, seeming to accept that. “Death is following you. Don't worry. It's not your time.”

“Following me?”

“You've left several messes to clean up. I don't hold it against you.” He licks his lips, eyes boring into John’s own. “You can choke the sea with blood, but the water will wash it away. The ocean’s love is a pure thing. If love drives you out to sea the sea will always love you back.” 

“It wasn't love for the sea that drove me here,” John says quietly, somehow worried the sea will hear him. 

“That’s not true,” the man says softly. “I don't think it matters, though. That's the problem with the ocean: no matter your original intent, you'll fall in love with him all the same. It happens to the best of us.”

John frowns and swallows. The ship is rocking gently with the waves, the movement almost hypnotic. The water is splashing against the bow and if he doesn't focus too hard it almost sounds like music. There's no way any of this is real. 

The man steps closer and John can smell him now, brine and ozone and something darkly familiar. “I’ll tell you this,” the man confides. “I'll tell you because the ocean doesn't want to taste your blood. I'll tell you because you don’t feel dead, and because you don’t want to die. When they choose you as captain, don't argue.”

“I'm not the captain,” John says. 

“You will be.”

“You don’t know that.”

The man tilts his head.

The deck floods suddenly with light as the moon comes out from behind the clouds. John looks up at it briefly, startled. When he looks back the man is gone.

He has barely a second to ruminate on that. Originally concealed by the darkness and the man before him, a ship is now visible off their starboard flank; a ship illuminated by the silvery moon, with a black flag flying off its mast and with its cannons aimed straight toward them.

The sound of the shot drowns out his call. The ship shakes with the force of the impact, sending him tumbling down the stairs onto the deck. His head makes contact with the wood and everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is now art for this fic! Please go check it out and spread the love! www.instagram.com/p/B8AeBq6hXlp/?igshid=zph7qoc3ecnb


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New things! New title, and Michael also has a new name. I'd given him a random name while I was working on this, then forgot that I hadn't changed it before publishing, then figured I'd just go with it, then realized some people were being misled by it. So yeah. Similar thing happened with the title. Let's just....pretend none of you noticed that.

The air is thick and humid with the smell of saline and beeswax.

He’s rocking with the movement of the waves. The ship is creaking softly, water dripping somewhere, running down the wooden walls darkened with sea slime, cold to the touch. Voices come to him, weaving in and out of the sound of a guitar being played. He can barely make out their words, barely wants to.

But then the music cuts off with a twang as one of the voices rises. He recognizes it. Harris.

“So, what? You’re letting him walk into an ambush? Just like you let _us_ be ambushed?!”

“This is more complicated than you know,” someone replies, their voice low and soft.

“It’s already complicated enough for me,” Harris scoffs, falling silent for a moment. “You have to know he’s not safe. Surely you know that.”

“He’s safe. He’s protected. He _can’t_ come to harm when he’s at sea, do you understand?”

“Is that what…”

“Yeah.”

There’s silence once more, and John is drifting in the midst of it. The dripping of the water is a soothing rhythm, lulling him to sleep once more.

“Relay our new destination to the crew,” the voice murmurs. “They know the heading.”

“Yes, captain,” Harris replies softly.

The last thing John hears before he drifts unconscious once more is the guitar resuming its playing, the melody mournful and lonely.

  


He blinks, and he opens his eyes to fire and smoke.

The sea is cold. The waves are dark. The water tastes like tears on his lips.

He’s lying on the deck. The wood is hard beneath his cheek.

A shout rings out, and he hears the creaking of wood nearby. He hauls his head up and turns to see a ship’s masts rising up into the fog, pulled abreast them and moored there. A flag flies from the main mast, a simple black piece of cloth bearing a messy red cross. He knows a pirate sign when he sees one.

“John,” Harris is whispering urgently, shaking his shoulder, and when John turns he’s hovering concernedly by his side. There’s a smear of blood under his nose. “Wake up. You need to get up.”

John swallows. His head spins as he sits up quickly. “What’s—”

“Shh.”

The rest of the crew are scattered before him, facing the main mast. They’re all on their knees, most of them haphazardly dressed. None of them are armed, and John’s heart is suddenly in his throat.

“Where is the captain?” a voice calls.

A few heads turn as his crewmates look at him, and he can see them battle internally as they try to decide whether calling to him will be a condemnation or not. John can see a scattering of people around the outskirts of the ship now, hulking figures dressed all in black and armed to the teeth.

This is a negotiation. If they don’t do something soon they’re all going to die.

“For the last time,” the voice calls again, and finally he sees the man at the very front of the crowd, standing with his back to the main mast. He has a grand round hat on top of his head and a cutlass is hanging lazily from his hand. “My name is Captain Sheffield. Where is your captain?”

Harris swallows hard, shooting him a look from the corner of his eye.

“Me,” John says, voice so rough he doubts he was heard by anyone except his own crew, the men scattered around him. He hobbles to his feet quickly, sparks blooming behind his eyes. “It’s me,” he shouts louder. “I’m the captain.”

The man’s eyes shoot to him and his nose wrinkles. “Nonsense. You’re too young.”

“I inherited this post after a mutiny was staged against him. I killed him with his own gun.”

A murmur runs through the pirates ringing the ship until the man cuts them off with a wave of his hand. “A mutiny,” he muses. “What drives the HMS Queen Elizabeth, crowning jewel of the Royal Navy, to mutiny against their captain?”

John thinks of the look on the captain’s face as the bullet pierced his heart and shudders. “He got what was coming and that’s all I’ll say.” 

“What do they call you?”

“John,” he says. And then he thinks of his parents back in Port Royale and the weight of his own last name. A governor’s son won’t last out here. Roger’s blue eyes come to mind. “Captain John Meddows.”

“Meddows,” the man repeats slowly, and the pirates shift. “Where do your loyalties lie then, little mutineer?”

“With the sea and with my men.”

“Do you remain loyal to the crown of England?”

“No.”

“Would you serve under a black flag?”

“The color of a flag has never mattered to me more than the people beneath it.”

“Hm. You have a sharp tongue, boy.”

He says nothing.

“There is a threat on these waters. The Armada of the pirate lord Taylor, king of the Brethren Court. Do you know of him?”

John tilts his head. “I know of him. The Armada has been raiding settlements all over the Caribbean for years.”

“Then you hold no loyalties to the Armada?”

“Of course not,” John says, frowning.

“Listen here, boy. You’ve made an enemy of the Navy. They’ll never take you back as mutineers, and you won’t last a second alone against Taylor. It’s time for you to choose a side.”

John clenches his jaw. “That’s _Captain,_ thank you,” he grits out, and out of the corner of his eye he sees one of his crewmates stifle a grin. “We have enemies in common. What say you we form some kind of truce?”

The pirates laugh again, and the captain grins at him. “Truce is a bold word. Fine, then. Take this as a test of loyalty. Sail for the Isla de los Muertos. It shouldn’t take you longer than a day, sunrise to sunset. If you make it there you can negotiate your terms of service with the Commander.”

“And if we don’t?”

The Captain grimaces. “If you don’t, we’ll hunt you down and make your meeting with death an abrupt one. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Death?”

“Serving.”

“Neither.”

“I’m stationing a handful of my officers here to ensure your loyalty,” he adds, gesturing for one of his men to come forward. “If any of these people are returned to me damaged in any way, I will personally grant you wounds to match. Is that clear?”

“You distrust too easily,” John says flatly. “It won’t be a problem.”

The captain raises his eyebrows. “See to it.” He snaps, and all but a handful of his crew cross the gangplank back onto the pirate ship anchored at Queen Elizabeth’s side. “Welcome to the winning team, Captain Meddows.”

“And which team is that?” John calls.

“The team that’s going to take Taylor down for good.”

  


The ship disappears into the night behind them as they set their new course.

“Do you think this is wise?” John mutters.

At the navigation desk, Ratty’s mouth flattens. “We don’t much have a choice, do we?”

“Quiet,” one of the pirates snaps. “No talking.”

John frowns, turning to her. That was the first surprise about their pirate shipmates: the pirate crew seems to be made up of as many women as it has men, and half the officers stationed on John’s ship are female. Mutterings about bad luck aside, his crew hadn’t stirred up a fuss about it, and for that he’s grateful.

“We’re not hostages, are we?” he asks her flatly.

“Not quite,” she retorts dryly, “though you’d have to forgive me if I don’t trust you quite yet.”

“I don’t blame you, in any event,” he offers. “The feeling’s mutual.”

She almost smiles at that. He can tell she’s trying to stifle it as she offers her hand for him to shake. “Veronica,” she says. “Sheffield’s first mate. Hopefully circumstances will allow both of our feelings to change.”

He takes her hand in his own. “John. We’re in the same boat now, so we better hope so,” he adds, and she actually snorts at that.

The door behind them bangs open, a man entering the navigation room. “We’re all getting along, then?”

“As much as we can,” Veronica offers. “How’s the crew?”

“Haven’t checked yet, actually. I don’t know if you want to do that, or…”

“Always leaving the hard work to me.”

“It’s just that you’re so _good_ at it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she mutters with a wry smile, pushing her way through the door to the quarterdeck.

Her departure is met with a long moment of silence. The new arrival shrugs. “My name’s Spike,” he offers the room at large. “In case anyone’s wondering. I’m the Commander’s third lieutenant.”

“Third lieutenant,” Ratty grunts. “What, they couldn’t gift us with the second or first?”

John shoots him a glare, but Spike just laughs. “I like you. Be careful with that attitude. Not everybody will find it funny.”

“I’m sorry for my crew,” John tells him, elbowing Ratty hard. “They do tend to range on the more sarcastic side.”

“I take it you don’t rule with an iron fist?”

John frowns. “Would that reflect poorly on us?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Spike shrugs. “The Commander is hardly that formal. Besides, what he doesn’t know doesn’t hurt him.”

John turns that over. “So who is this commander, then? What’s he have against the Armada?”

“Who doesn’t have something against Admiral Taylor?” Spike asks. “These waters are full of people who want him dead for one reason or another. Of course, nobody’s ever come close to taking him out. I don’t know what the Commander’s issue is with him, but word is it’s personal.”

“Nobody knows?”

“No. And he won’t say.”

John frowns, worrying his lip. If his third in command doesn’t have a clue why the feud started in the first place then John will have close to no chances of learning the reasons himself.

“Listen. All that matters is that Taylor doesn’t play by the rules,” Spike says in a low voice. “We may be pirates, but we have a code. We look out for our own. The Brethren Court is an alliance, and he made a lot of enemies when he turned against his own. What he did isn’t right. It’s supposed to be us versus the Navy—versus the world.”

“How did he break the code?” John asks quietly.

Spike sighs. “He started picking off smaller fleets first. That’s not a cardinal sin, but trying to rule the seas is. He pushed the Navy back first, then pushed other pirates out of his territory. Now we’re getting trapped between his ships and British waters. Of course we have to fight back. We don’t have a choice. Only problem is he isn’t fighting fair.”

Ratty sits back from his charts. “What do you mean?”

“He’s chasing things,” Spike says. “Those are the rumors, anyway. He’s chasing the heart of Davy Jones.”

“That can’t be real, can it?” Ratty says loudly.

Spike tilts his head. “It’s any man’s word against another.”

“Our captain was chasing that, too,” John murmurs. 

“Yeah, but he was mad, John,” Ratty pipes up.

“Mad?” Spike asks.

“Bonkers. He shot a man point-blank for sneaking rations. He was about to lead us into a hurricane on some fool’s errand to hunt down the sea goddess. He would’ve killed Harris, too. The kid’s only sixteen. If John hadn’t—”

“That’s enough,” John murmurs. “It doesn’t change the fact that Taylor and the Royal Navy are after the same thing.”

“Then they’re both mad,” Ratty scoffs.

“Maybe,” Spike says, “though you best hope they aren’t. Because that’s the thing about the Commander, you know. They say he’s found the sea goddess already.”

“No,” Ratty breathes, aghast.

“Oh, aye. They say she fell in love with him the minute she laid eyes on him. They say he can’t die at sea because he’s under her protection.”

“And who’s saying that?” John asks.

Spike shrugs. “They’re just stories, surely. That’s the odd thing about stories, though. When enough people are telling them, you start to wonder if maybe they’re true.”

  


John pushes open the door to the captain’s quarters later that night and is met with the smell of decay. He winces at the smell, the thick, muggy air choking him, and waves a hand in front of his nose.

The rooms have laid empty ever since the captain died. Nothing’s been touched. Even despite the rebellion and the mutiny, the crew somehow tiptoe around the area of the ship as if it isn’t there right to go near it, even now. Maybe they think it’s his, though the thought of it hanging cold and empty at the stern chills him. He doesn’t want to enter any more than they do.

That changed tonight.

As the sun set and the night crew began crawling out of the woodwork, the rest of the men filtering from the galley toward the crew quarters, he’d hesitated to join them. Veronica gave him a hard look.

“You can’t try to tell me you sleep in the crew’s quarters.”

He shrugged. “It encourages camaraderie,” he said hesitantly.

“Bullshit. Who doesn’t take advantage of private quarters? You’re trying to get a private word with your crew so you can stage a mutiny.” She took a slow sip of ale. “We’re not that stupid, John.”

John looked to Spike, who shrugged. “This trust thing goes both ways, but she’s got a point,” he said. “I’ve never heard of a captain not sleeping in his quarters.”

“Not even after a mutiny?”

“Nah. And I’ve met my fair share of mutineers.”

“Maybe I’m not like them.”

“Maybe not,” Spike shrugged again. “Even so, humor us.”

He lights the lamp beside the doorway, and when it sheds enough light to see by his eyes fall on a plate of rotting food still sitting on the table, flies buzzing around the piece of rancid steak. His nose wrinkles and he grabs the whole plate, flinging it swiftly out the window and watching as it’s swallowed by the foam falling in waves from the ship’s sleek sides.

The bed is too big for the room, the pillows covered with fine silk sheets. A real mirror hangs against the closet window. An extra captain’s jacket is hung over a hook in the corner, the fine blue wool piped with golden cord and edged with neat shiny fringe. It’s never been worn, the pockets still stitched closed, and beneath it lies an extra waistcoat, pair of breeches, stockings, shoes, cravat…John leaves them all there, picks up the coat gingerly and drapes it over his shoulders. It’s a perfect fit.

He wanders over to the desk in the corner. A few maps hang against the wall, pins stuck in place to chart ship movements. A pile of letters is tied up in a drawer. John sifts through them but there aren’t any from family, just a few correspondences between captains and a handful of military orders.

In another drawer is a tiny painting of the king, an empty flask and a box of pistol rounds. John is about to close it when he sees a bit of string in the corner of the wood, and when he pulls at it the false bottom rises up, revealing a compartment underneath.

He tugs out a small, leather-bound journal embossed in dark script.

_Captain Edward Stirling, HMS Queen Elizabeth_

_1705—_

Frowning, John flips it open. And then his jaw drops.

It’s full of drawings—pen doodles, pencil sketches, the lines traced and colored in with watercolors. There’s page after page of them, annotated in spidery cursive. Ships and dates, maps, drawings of islands, small portraits of crew members, and it goes on and on.

He comes across a quick sketch of his own face somewhere in the middle, captioned with the word LEVERAGE, and his stomach twists.

And then the drawings change.

There is a painting of a woman with a tail where her legs should be. A pen and ink sketch of a massive squid takes up two whole pages, displaying a gaping, fang-lined mouth instead of a beak. An anatomically drawn heart, a ship seemingly erupting out of the waves, a hand clutching a handful of cords, the charms dangling off the end that vaguely resemble glass floats.

 _The heart of the sea cannot be found,_ written over and over across one page. _The heart of the sea cannot be found. The heart of the sea cannot be found._

He can’t have been right in the head.

The last pages of the book are blank, and he closes it slowly before tucking it into his pocket. He looks around the room one more time: the grand furniture, the silver tea set on top of the table, the balcony off the back of the ship.

He thinks about the way the gun had felt in his hand. He thinks about the blue of Stirling’s jacket turning black with blood, the gold piping turning a sickly rusty color, Stirling gasping as he’d met John’s eyes, Harris taking a shuddering breath at his feet. His dirty blond was splattered with Stirling’s blood, and he hadn’t turned around to look as the crew had descended on the man behind him, tackled him down to the deck in a heaving mob as he screamed and screamed.

John shivers again, stomach lurching. He barely makes it to the balcony before losing the contents of his stomach over the edge, gagging against the burn of bile in his throat.

He stays there for a long moment, breathing in the sea air. The sound of the water is like breathing, in-out-in-out, and he uses it to ground himself until he feels his heart slow and his hands stop shaking.

He can’t stay in this room, not even to keep up appearances. He can’t do it.

He leaves it behind, blowing out the lamp and closing the door softly. The clean air of the quarterdeck soothes him, and he nods at his crewmate at the helm as he makes his way below deck to the crew’s quarters. He makes his way to his hammock and part of him is warmed when he finds that the crew left it empty. He barely bothers to remove his pistol harnesses and sword sheath before laying down, using the jacket as a blanket.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard it,” he hears a voice say a few rows down. Gallagher, he thinks. The navigation apprentice.

“I’ve heard versions of it,” someone replies, and he instantly recognizes it to be Harris.

“Don’t get defensive. You’re the one asking for a bedtime story.”

“It’s not a _bedtime story._ ”

“Fine. Whatever. Okay. Hear these words, for I have a story.”

“I know. I asked you to—”

“Shut up. That’s how it always starts.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know! Do you want me to tell the damned thing or not?”

“…Go ahead.”

Gallagher huffs. “Once upon a time there was a general. He was the most feared in the Caribbean, and everyone ran when they saw his ship coming. They believed he had no weaknesses and nothing could defeat him, not even death. There were rumors that he was so cruel because he loved nothing and no one. But this was untrue.”

“What, he fell for some bird?”

“If you keep mocking it I won’t finish it.”

“Fine.”

“He fell in love with the sea. His greatest strength was his demise. Though he commanded the power in those waters, decades went by like a blink until a time came when he became so estranged from land that he could never set foot there again. His men were long dead, their phantoms roaming the decks of the ship until finally the captain was the only one left, and then one day he passed, too. And so he became a spirit, cursed to toe the line between worlds, lost at sea forever. The sea is a dangerous lover, and to fall for her is to lose yourself.”

“That’s a shite ending.”

“That’s how my mum told it.”

“Well, she’s a shite storyteller.”

“You talking shit about my mum?”

“Shut up, you fuckers,” another voice calls from across the room. “Get some shuteye. Are you forgetting where we are?”

“Sorry,” Gallagher calls back.

John rolls over in his hammock, eyes drifting to the window. The sea is calm and flat, the crests of the waves silver under the light of the moon. For a moment he thinks he sees a ship outside, the shape of the sails a dark spot against the stars, the hull a rusty smear. He blinks, and when he looks again he sees it for what it is: storm clouds brewing on the horizon.

The story doing laps in his mind and the captain’s journal a heavy weight in his pocket, he drifts off to sleep.

  


He expects nightmares. He doesn’t get them.

He’s underwater. He can’t see the surface. The world is a weightless sphere of blue-green, no up, no down, just him and the pressure against him. He’s never felt so loved or so cradled. Despite the gnawing fear of drowning he’s never felt so safe. The water should feel cold against his skin, but instead it feels like a warm embrace.

 _You are loved,_ a voice whispers in his ear, as melodic as the sounds of waves lapping at stones.

He pulls his arms through the water and feels it caress his skin in return. _I love you,_ he thinks, and the bubbles that rush up around him sound like a sigh.

  


When he wakes in the morning the storm is upon them.

“That’s not looking good,” Spike murmurs on the quarterdeck as he gnaws his way through an apple.

John grimaces. He’s scanning the cloud with a telescope, not that it’s doing him much good. It’s a sheer wall of black clouds, lightning already visible throughout it. He has no idea what the wind is like, but it isn’t looking promising.

“We could go around.”

“Not likely,” Veronica says on John’s other side. “We try to do that, we’ll be off course by at least a hundred miles.”

“Better that than dead.”

“Not if the storm follows us south.”

“We go north, then,” John says. “Shoot right across its upper edge.”

“Can we bear that high?” Spike asks doubtfully.

“This ship can handle it. Pride of the Royal Navy and all that,” he replies dryly. “I’m less confident about what it’ll do to our course.”

“You can run it by Ratty,” Spike offers. “I think we shouldn’t have too much trouble, though. Provided you can make it at that angle, it’s a downwind sail from there.”

“Can we dock in this?”

Veronica and Spike share a glance. “Let’s hope it’s clearer closer to Isla de los Muertos,” Veronica says, and Spike’s mouth flattens worriedly.

“Right,” John sighs. “Exactly the voice of confidence I needed.”

“If you don’t think you can handle it—”

“I can handle it. It’s my damned ship,” he mutters. “Let’s enjoy these last hours of smooth sailing while we can, alright?”

“Aye aye, captain,” Spike says sarcastically.

He descends below deck, looping around the staircase before heading toward the bow where the galley is nestled. He can hear loud chatter and raucous laughter from here, and he smiles to himself. At least the rest of the crew is in good spirits.

The volume in the room dips slightly as he enters, then rises up again as a few people yell greetings.

“Decided to descend from the high tower and join us foot soldiers, huh?”

“Aw, Johnny, nice coat.”

“Those rebel fuckfaces treating you okay?”

“You can’t talk about our allies like that, Gallagher,” John calls, stifling a grin and taking the tin mug of builder’s tea that’s offered to him.

“Ah, they can take it.”

“What’s the move, captain?” someone asks softly.

John sighs. “I’m not your captain. Not really.”

“Bullshit you aren’t,” Gallagher pipes up.

“Sure look like a captain to me,” Harris adds, flicking the edge of his royal blue jacket.

John huffs out a laugh, shrugging him off. “No, I mean that this isn’t—I’m not going to run things the way Stirling did, alright? I want to know what you guys think about this. If you don’t trust these guys we don’t have to follow them. We can always just mutiny again.”

A burst of laughter loops through the room. “We’ve gotten quite good at mutinies, haven’t we?” someone huffs.

The image of the captain’s bloodied body being hurled overboard flashes through his head, and John hides his shudder with a sip of tea.

“We trust you, John,” Harris murmurs, and the men around him nod. “What do you think we should do?”

John shrugs. “I think an alliance with them is as good a bet as any,” he says slowly. “I wish we could go home, but I don’t think it’s an option. The punishment for mutiny is death. I don’t think they’ll care what the circumstances are. Maybe if we had some way to negotiate that’d be different.”

“What about your father?”

John grimaces. He’d thought about it, sure, but… “I know I have some bargaining power, but I’m concerned as to how far that extends.”

“What do you mean?”

“He means that if we negotiate a safe return to Port Royal there’s a good chance that they’ll pardon John only to immediately hang the rest of us,” Gallagher says dryly. “They’ll get their flagship and their governor’s son both returned in one piece. They don’t give a shit about the crew.”

That’s met with a worried silence.

“We don’t need allies, right?” someone mutters in the back. “If we’re going to be outlaws, we might as well be independent.”

“But most outlaws have allies,” Harris says. “You know that as well as I do. There’s a reason pirates make alliances. Besides, I don’t fancy being picked off by Taylor.”

“Taylor? What do we have to fear?”

“You remember the raids just as well as I do,” Gallagher says. “Hell, you’re from Port Royal. You remember what they did. They took my sister. They shot my father point blank when he tried to protect her.”

“They burned my house to the ground with my parents inside,” Harris pipes up, his voice hard.

John thinks of the last glance he’d gotten of Roger, his hair flashing gold from the brief light from a cannon shot, his face streaked with tears and blood, struggling with all his might. When he saw John standing there he’d shouted something, but over the din John couldn’t hear him. He’d thrown himself to the ground and kicked at his captor, their hands still around his wrists, but another pirate had stepped in behind him and hit him full-force with a butt of a pistol straight to the back of the head. John swore he heard the sound of it even over the cannonfire, and he’d screamed as Roger had gone down like a bag of concrete. He’d struggled against the British soldiers dragging him to safety even as he’d watched Roger’s limp body get carried away.

“Everybody’s lost someone to them,” Ratty murmurs quietly. “There’s not one of us who hasn’t.”

“When it comes to allies I don’t think we have a choice,” John says. “And we need allies out here. When the Navy finds out what we’ve done they’ll come for us. We’re the flagship. They’ll want to set an example. We need someone who will watch our backs, and it can’t be Taylor. After everything the Armada has done, I can’t serve under them. I just can’t.”

“Then that’s settled, isn’t it?” someone says.

John shrugs. “For now at least, yeah. I know things are hard right now. We don’t have enough bodies after the mutiny. We’re practically a skeleton crew at this point. Hopefully by the end of the day we’ll be in a position where that’ll change. For now I need you all to keep performing admirably as always. There’s a storm coming. It’ll be a long day.”

The men around him nod, a low murmur running through the galley.

The man closest to him raises the kettle, refilling John’s teacup. “Captain,” he says softly. “See you on the bridge.”

John nods in thanks, taking his cup with him as he leaves.

He doesn’t even see Veronica as he walks through the door. She pushes away from the wall as he passes, revealing herself suddenly from the shadows. “That was a compelling speech,” she says.

He jumps high enough that he almost dumps his tea all over himself. “Jesus,” he hisses.

“Relax,” she says, and she’s smiling softly now. 

“We weren’t staging a mutiny or anything.”

“I know. I heard.” She studies him for a brief moment. “You know you have nothing to worry about, right? This alliance isn’t like the navy. It isn’t even like the Armada. We look out for each other because we want to, not because we’re scared.”

He frowns. “But your captain—”

“Is pretty much the biggest dick the Commander ever hired. Didn’t you wonder why one of his officers is a lieutenant, but not him?”

John frowns. “So…”

“So he has what it takes to command a ship. He does a great job of it, even,” she adds, “but when it comes to cooperation, he doesn’t really _get_ it.”

“And you do?”

She tilts her head, falling into step with him as they walk back toward the bridge. “I get enough. I get that loyalty can’t be taken, only earned.”

He allows himself a small smile at that. He doesn’t trust the rebels as far as he can throw them—not really, anyway—but something about them still manages to warm his bones all the same.

“You’re good at this captaining thing, you know,” she says conversationally.

He blinks at her in surprise, and she takes advantage of the moment to grab his tea out of his hand and take a long sip. “I haven’t been doing it for long,” he says.

“It shows.”

“Thanks,” he says dryly.

“It’s not like it matters,” she adds. “Who cares? These people look up to you. You’re still a kid—”

“I’m twenty-one.”

“Babyface,” she says, and he swats her hand when she pokes at his cheek. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know who you are, John, but you have their respect. You’ve got the highest power that any captain can ever get.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Which is…”

“They _like_ you,” she says pointedly, wrapping his fingers back around the mug pointedly and patting his hand. “You’re not quite one of them and you’re not quite above them. You’re in a good place.”

He frowns at her. “I feel like this pep talk isn’t really what Captain Sheffield had in mind when he put you on this ship.”

“Ah, screw him,” she shrugs, shoving her trifold lower over her hair as they step back out onto the quarterdeck and into the rain.

“That’s no way to talk about your captain.”

“Like I said: the main job of a captain is to earn their crew’s respect, and then ensure that they don’t fuck up and lose it. Some captains are better at that than others.”

“What’s the secret?”

She huffs a laugh. “You tell me.”

He jogs up the stairs to the aft deck, hearing her feet clunking up the wooden steps behind him. Ratty is at the wheel, and he looks up as John approaches.

“Captain.”

“How are we looking?”

“We can shoot about eight degrees north of our course without losing too much time,” he says. “Fifteen degrees from the wind. It’s not ideal, but…”

“But it’s not like we have a choice,” John finishes for him. “Fine. Alright. Let’s do this.”

He eyes the storm cloud worriedly, then looks behind them at the calm blue seas at their stern. For a moment he sees a ship in the distance, hovering just on the edge of the horizon. The warm cherry wood of the hull is shining a vibrant russet in the sun.

“Do you see that?” he murmurs.

“Hmm?” Veronica asks. She’s frowning at the map spread out on the table, protected from the rain by a small ledge.

“Just there. I thought there was…” But when he looks up the ship is gone.

“What?” she asks skeptically. “There was something back there?”

He shakes his head, frowning. “Must’ve been a trick of the light.”

  


The sea is a mess of raging waves that afternoon.

John has half a mind to wonder what it’s so angry about. The sun is nearly completely blocked out by black clouds, the swells rising into mountains and towering above the ship before crashing down onto the deck. His crew are all donning their red coats courtesy of His Majesty’s navy, not for any sort of loyalty so much as the ease at which the color can be spotted in the churning waves. John isn’t sure how much luck they’d have retrieving a man overboard in these conditions, especially if they were wearing neutral whites or greys.

“Captain, I’d advise you to take down the main sails!” Spike calls.

“She can hold a little longer,” John yells back. The force of holding the wheel on course is making his forearms ache. His eyes are stinging from the salt spray. “Don’t worry about it.”

“If you lose a mast in this—”

“I know. We need to stay on course, though.”

“We drift off track and we’ll end up in Taylor’s waters,” Veronica calls from the other side of the quarterdeck. She’s loosening the mizzen sail as much as she dares, letting the rope slip out of its cleat gradually until the canvas is flapping in the wind. The mast creaks at the relieved tension. “Captain Mutiny is right. Better we lose a mast than the whole damned ship.”

“We’ll lose it anyway at this rate, if we’re not careful,” Spike snaps back, but otherwise he lets it go.

John just grits his jaw, focusing on keeping the wheel tight in his grip. He can feel the tug pulling them windward, the entire ship aching under the strain of staying on course against the pounding wind and the raging current. His compass is barely staying propped up on the ledge behind the when, and he nods in thanks when Spike reaches out to steady it as it starts sliding when the ship lurches over another swell.

“We’re nearly there now,” Spike yells into his ear. “It shouldn’t be much further. Keep windward of it or else you’ll—”

“I know what I’m doing,” John snaps, then catches himself. “Two degrees north, yeah?”

“That’s Ratty’s order.”

He nudges the wheel just that much further into the wind. “Tighten the main!” he shouts over the sound of the waves. A swell broadsides them, sending green foam washing over the deck, and he looks around frantically as he counts red coats. Twenty two men; they didn’t lose anyone. “Come on! Tighten up!”

“You _will_ lose it at this point!” Spike shouts.

He just shakes his head. He knows they’re okay; knows by the way the mast is creaking, by the way the waves are pounding just that much harder. They’re getting close. They’re almost there.

“Land ho!” Harris screams from somewhere behind him.

“Heading?”

“Two degrees south! We’ll never be able to dock in this!”

“We can’t anchor!” Spike yells. “Not in this harbor. Can’t row in in this weather, either.”

He clenches his jaw again.

He knows _how_ to do it.

In theory.

The island approaches alarmingly fast, a little lagoon set between to great cliffs. Spike points him through it, and with a slight windbreak the waves are significantly lessened, but still horrendous. Night is descending quickly, the docks only lit up by torches, and Spike directs him toward a slip.

“There. Pull it straight in. They’ll catch you.”

John nods. “All sails up!” He shouts. “Prepare to dock! Come on!”

The crew scramble across the deck, shoes slipping on slimy wet wood as mooring lines are quickly prepared. The ship slows slightly as the sails are raised, drifting forward with nothing but momentum and the current now, and he steers them straight toward the dock. As they approach the current pushes them leeward, the side of the bow brushing against the dock as they just barely make it into the slip.

But then from there it’s a scramble as lines are cast about, people jumping off the side of the boat and rolling with the momentum of the ten-foot drop onto the wood of the dock. They scramble for cleats, his crew working side-by-side with the dozens of pirates already waiting by the harbor.

“Harris, take the helm,” he yells, barely waiting for him to grab the wheel before sliding down one of the dangling ropes. His feet make contact with the dock but he’s already running, nearly colliding with a man pulling on one of the starboard lines with all his might and getting dragged steadily across the dock as he refuses to let go.

John moves without thinking, wrapping one arm around his waist and grabbing the rope with the other, throwing the two of them backward toward the nearest cleat. The call echoes through the assembled crowd and they move as one, steadily yanking the ship securely into position.

“Cheers,” the man pants, the two of them tumbling toward the cleat. Their hands keep bumping into each other as they rush to tie off the line, saltwater-slick fingers getting in the way.

“John,” Spike calls from somewhere behind him.

“Give me a minute,” John shouts back. “Make sure the stern is secure.”

“John…” the man in front of him murmurs, trailing off.

John ignores him, working at the line quickly. With the man’s hands having fallen slack, no longer in the way, he manages to tie off the cleat hitch rapidly. Between the ship and the dock the line is taught as a bowstring, and John checks the knot over worriedly just to make sure it won’t slip.

“Fuck,” he hears Spike pant from somewhere to his right. “The aft lines won’t hold. We need to double up.”

“Then do it,” John snaps.

“Commander—”

“Do it, Spike,” the man in front of him orders, his voice rough and low and hard and still breathless and so heart-wrenchingly familiar that John’s head snaps up.

And he’s met with a pair of familiar blue eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New developments? Exciting changes? I appreciate you all and would love to hear your thoughts!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a brief description of violence in this chapter, and I’m putting a warning in because there’s some gore as well. It’s nothing too graphic, but if you’re uncomfortable with descriptions of blood please skip the first dream sequence in this chapter! It starts with “he dreams he’s on the deck of his ship”

It can’t be real; he can’t be _here_ , and yet he undeniably is. John would know him anywhere—his big eyes wide with shock, his long eyelashes, his sweet mouth, the golden waves of his hair longer than John remembers and hanging dark and wet against his face, soaked with rain and sea spray. It’s him, and the breathless shock written across Roger’s face—the feeling of recognizing and being recognized, the feeling of knowing and mirroring each other that he’d missed so much—just confirms it.

There’s rain running down Roger’s face, silver rivulets caressing his sun-kissed skin.

The world fades back in slowly—the sounds of people shouting to each other, the scramble of movement as the ship is secured, the creaking of wood. He can’t look away from Roger’s eyes. He’s afraid that if this moment ends it will be gone forever, and Roger will go with it.

The spell is broken when Veronica skids to a stop at their side. “Commander,” she greets, then seems to notice John and pauses. “Captain. Your ship is secure.”

Commander. _Commander._

John’s hands are still resting on top of the ropes looping over the cleat. He doesn’t look down as Roger’s fingers nudge against his, cold and wet and deliberate.

“Well done, Lieutenant,” Roger says softly, his eyes never leaving John’s face.

“This is Captain John Meddows, our newest recruit,” Veronica says, a little awkwardly. “He’s a mutineer from the Royal Navy. Brought us their flagship in return for safe harbor.”

“Meddows?” Roger asks.

“Family name,” John murmurs, and he watches as Roger’s throat bobs.

And all at once Roger won’t look at him. He doesn’t move his hands, his fingers still brushing John’s, but he immediately turns to their assembled officers. “Get his crew hot meals,” he says. “Baths, if they want them. We have spare lodgings on the north side of town for the night. They can’t stay aboard the ship in this weather.” He turns, tapping John’s wrist once with the side of his fingers in a gesture from their shared childhood that John had nearly forgotten about, and John falls into step with him easily as they start up the dock, their knuckles brushing together every other second.

Their respective officers rush to flank them. “Commander, we don’t have enough—”

“The last raid of Port Heath lent more than enough supplies. Where’s Leng?”

“Here!”

“I’m putting you on that,” Roger says. They make it under the overhang of a shipwreck somehow protruding from the mountainside, and when John looks up his breath catches. What he’d thought was a tall hill is actually a great fortress made up of various pieces of ships, the portholes glowing with inner light.

“We can lodge them in the Western Barracks. But sir, there’s no saying that they’ll behave. We need to discuss—”

“Just make it happen,” Roger calls. He strips off his sodden greatcoat, tossing it to someone as he walks before subtly hooking two fingers around the side of John’s wrist. John’s heart leaps.

“Commander, I must insist that we discuss a way to ensure that they won’t storm this camp overnight.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says.

“Don’t worry about it,” she echoes flatly, and Roger raises his eyebrows at her.

“Captain,” a voice says, and when John turns it’s Ratty.

“Follow her,” John tells him. “Take the crew with you. You need anything, you or Harris come get me. Don’t make any trouble for these people.”

“You’re not coming?”

“I need to—”

“Commander,” a man calls. “Scouts just sent word of Armada movement north of Castaway Rock. If we deploy a ship now we can intercept.”

“In this weather?” Veronica snaps. “You’re mental.”

“We need to plan the next raid of Royal Island before first light,” another voice pipes up.

“Captain, do you want us to unload rations now as well?”

“Commander, there’s been a security breach on the fortress in Bermuda that I think—”

“Captain, when should we be prepared to head back to sea?”

“Enough!” Roger snaps, his voice rough and low.

The crowd falls silent.

“We can’t plan anything until this storm breaks,” he calls over the pounding rain. “You’ve all had a long journey, and I suggest you sleep it off. Jobby, if you’re that pressed for something to do then you can start planning the next raid, but we won’t need to do anything until at least tomorrow. Take the weekend, and make it your priority to get our new allies to their lodgings and a hot meal.”

“And Captain Meddows?”

“The Captain will be dining with me,” Roger says firmly.

“On your best manners, men,” John calls, and gets a soft chuckle from his crews. “No abusing hospitality, no making a fuss. We’ll debrief tomorrow.”

The crowd disperses quickly. John barely has time to watch them go; Roger is dragging him by his wrist through the door of the fortress and into some sort of grand hall, toward a staircase at the end leading up and up.

“Roger,” he murmurs under his breath.

Roger just shakes his head sharply. “Not here,” he murmurs.

They reach the end of the hallway. The door there looks like it was taken straight from the aft deck of a ship, and when Roger unlocks it and pushes John inside he has just enough time to take in the fact that it probably _is_ the stern section of a clipper, wide bay windows looking out onto the lagoon and massive four-foot tall lanterns still hanging from wrought-iron beams just outside of them.

And then Roger is looking at him once more, right in his space, and John can’t breathe.

Roger’s fingers still on his wrist wander down to tangle with his own. He traces his thumb over the back of John’s hand, then raises it to brush his lips against the same spot. “Jesus,” he breathes.

He’s solid. He’s corporeal.

John reaches out to trace his palm against the curve of Roger’s waist, the same spot it used to fit in so well, and marvels in the fac that that little thing hasn’t changed. And then all at once he can’t get close enough, can’t step close enough into Roger’s space, pulling his body tightly against John’s own and breathing him in. He still smells the same, but it’s undercut with brine, now. His hair is still just as soft.

“I tried to get word to you,” Roger whispers urgently against his cheek. “You have to know that, but I couldn’t.”

“Where the hell have you been?” John murmurs.

“I knew there was a Deacon in the navy, but I never thought it was _you_. You were never a military man, John. I thought you would be safe if I—”

“I missed you. Years, Roger. Do you get that? I mourned you. I—”

“I’m so sorry I never came back. I’m so fucking sorry. Every day I wanted to but there—”

“Of course I followed you. How could I not—”

“I never stopped. I’ll always—”

“I love you. I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

John folds himself into him, ducks his head to press his face into his neck, feels Roger cling to him and isn’t sure whether the feeling in his chest is impending panic, sobs or laughter. He squeezes his eyes shut against the feeling.

And then Roger’s lips brush against his neck.

He kisses him just above the collar of his jacket, fingers clenching the fine blue wool in his fists. He scatters kisses across the skin there, feather-light pecks wherever he can reach, and John lets out a shuddering breath before getting a hand in his still-wet hair and hauling him in for a real kiss.

Roger sighs into it the way he used to, the way he _always_ does, and he groans as he pulls John closer by the lapels of his jacket. His back is a taut arch as he stands on his toes to press more firmly into John’s space, and John traces over the curve of it with his palm.

“We need to get you dried off before you get sick,” Roger murmurs against his mouth.

“It can wait.”

“No, we need…” Roger starts, then trails off with a moan as John bites at his lip. He drags it on for a long moment before pulling away. “Come on. I’m not having you die of pneumonia when I only just found you again.”

“Roger,” John starts, then grins when Roger pulls away only to push John lightly into a chair.

“This is hot as hell, by the way,” Roger says quietly with a grin, tracing his fingers against the gold cords looping gracefully over the front of John’s jacket. “Never thought I’d see you in captain’s regalia.”

“Never thought I’d see you in pirate’s getup,” John replies, fingers playing with the sash tied loosely around Roger’s waist. It’s thick blue silk, and John vaguely recognizes it as a torn piece of a Union Jack. “Actually, I never thought I’d see you again at all,” he adds. Now that he has him back, standing in front of him in one piece, a surge of irritation washes through his chest.

Roger winces. “I can explain that.”

“Go ahead,” John says, setting his jaw. “Because the way I see it, it wouldn’t have been _too_ hard to get word to me, now would it?”

“John—”

“I mean, you only have an entire fleet at your disposal.”

“It’s not really that simple.”

“How’d you end up as a commander in the first place, hmm? The last I saw you I thought you were—” he starts, then cuts himself off. “Do you know what I thought had happened to you? Do you get what rumors go around about what happens to people who get dragged off by the Armada?”

“I know,” Roger says quickly. “I’m sorry. I’ll explain it, just. Fuck. Let me help you dry off, and then I’ll explain everything.”

John presses his lips together, but he lets Roger tug off his jacket and shirt, wiping the salt off his skin with a warm cloth. He digs through a wardrobe in the corner until he comes up with a long shirt soft with age, holding it out like an olive branch and looking away politely, and John rolls his eyes before stripping unceremoniously and tugging it on. As if Roger hasn’t seen it all before.

It’s only then that Roger goes to work on his hair, dragging him over to the bed and settling behind him as he begins combing through it with his fingers and carefully drying the ends with a towel. “It’s not that I didn’t want to come back,” he murmurs softly. “It’s that I couldn’t, and for more reasons than one. At first it was because they wouldn’t let me.”

“Who’s they?” John grunts.

“The Armada,” Roger replies, and John shivers when he brushes his lips across the skin behind John’s ear. “I was with them for about two months. They were grooming me to be a captain.”

John frowns. The Armada takes civilians for many reasons—hard labor, petty grunt work, sex trafficking and spying, just to name a few—but officer training is rarely one of them. “A captain?”

“To get me ready. He wanted me to inherit the post so I could lead the Armada someday. He’d already lost so much time.”

“Roger—”

“Meddows is my middle name, John.” He stills, his hands falling away from John’s hair. “My surname by birth is Taylor.”

John whips around to face him, but the anger beginning to burn in his chest dies out suddenly at the dejected look on Roger’s face. He studies him, but Roger looks anything but proud. “You said you didn’t remember,” he breathes.

“I didn’t,” Roger says. “I swear I didn’t. When you found me, that was the first day of my life. I barely remember anything before that.”

“What do you remember?”

He shrugs. “Ships. A lot of ships. I was almost always at sea. I remember my mom. She was pretty,” he adds quietly. “She had a nice voice.”

“Where is she?”

He shrugs. “Could be dead. I don’t know. My sister, too.”

“You have a sister?”

“That’s what he said,” Roger says, his voice soft. “Clare. That’s her name. My little sister. She disappeared with my mom. He’s trying to find them now.”

“And you?”

“He thought I was dead. For years, he thought I was dead. I don’t know how I ended up in that shipwreck or how I survived, and neither does he. I was probably on an Armada ship that got taken out by the navy when they were clearing the waters for you to pass through. I don’t know. I don’t remember whether he and I were even close. For all I know I could have been his biggest fan.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” John replies, taking his hands and tracing over his fingers gently. The skin there is rough now, different than what he remembers. His calluses match John’s, the mark of years of sea spray and salt-encrusted rope.

Roger huffs out a laugh. “Maybe. I hope so. He didn’t care that I was even aboard. He didn’t care if I died. He told me he wished I did, even. He was happy to have me back, but he’d rather I’d died. He said he’d be happy to make it happen.”

“So what’d you do?”

“Mutinied. I went along with his orders until he gave me my own command. I was only a first officer, but that didn’t matter. The rest of the crew was angry with their captain, and with Taylor’s orders. There were a few other ships that were on the brink of collapsing as well. So, I told them to kill their captains and take their ships off the map—to meet me at Isla de los Muertos with any others who opposed Taylor’s Armada. They did. They crossed their own leaders. The Cross, some of them are calling us now. And here we are.”

“And your rank?”

“They needed someone who would lead them,” he says, shrugging gently. “They figured I should call the shots.”

“They like you. You’re good at it.”

“I’ve been good at it so far,” he replies, and even through his tiny smile John can see the strain of the last few years.

He looks different than John remembers in a way that two years of time can’t quite account for. The sunshine in his eyes has been overcome by an inferno. He’s sharper now, more determined—not necessarily bad things, but…

“Anyway, I couldn’t get word to Port Royal. We can’t exactly just post a letter, and all the spies I sent were intercepted. I just wanted to know how you were doing and if you were alright. I was ready to go there myself, but between the Royal Navy and the Armada beginning to patrol those waters…”

“I know,” John says.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m just happy to know you’re okay.” And he is, really; he’s happy just to hold Roger’s hands in his own and feel the warmth radiating off his skin.

Roger smiles at him gratefully, sadness lingering in the corners of his mouth. “I can get you a room down the hall. I think there are some spares.”

His heart sinks, and he almost accepts until he sees the offer for what it is by the way that Roger won’t meet his gaze. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he murmurs, and Roger’s eyes shoot up to his.

“I thought you’d be angry with me.”

“How could I be, after everything?” he asks softly, tracing the back of his hand with a thumb. “How could I ever?”

“I’m a pirate,” he says quietly, voice pinched as his eyes well up. “I lied to you. I didn’t know everything, but I knew enough. And my father, my _family_ —”

“I’m your family,” John cuts in, reaching out to cup his cheek, “and I don’t care.”

“You should.”

“I’ve spent every minute of the last two years missing you,” John whispers. “You think a thing like this would change that?”

And Roger sighs, sighs as soft as the rain outside, sighs like the waves beating against the walls of the harbor. John kisses his cheek and isn’t sure if the saltwater he tastes is tears or sea spray. It doesn’t matter to him.

He presses Roger backward until he’s laying against the soft comforter, his golden hair still damp against the pillow, his eyes sea blue and half-lidded. John hovers over him, pressed into his space and breathing his air, and leans down until their foreheads are resting together.

“Whatever has happened,” he whispers, “I don’t care. I don’t care where we’re going as long as we’re together.”

“You won’t always mean that,” Roger whispers back.

John just shakes his head, watching Roger’s eyes drift down to his mouth. “I will. I always, always will. My heart has always belonged to you.”

Something bittersweet drifts through Roger’s eyes. He doesn’t reply.

  


He dreams he’s on the deck of his ship.

The sun is beating down. Sweat is gathering on his neck beneath the thick red fabric of his uniform, beading there and making his collar stick to his skin. He feels lightheaded.

“Gentlemen, what is our motto?” Stirling yells over the crashing of the waves.

The sails have all been rolled up. They’re unanchored, drifting with the currents, probably being pushed off course. They need to get back underway.

“If you want peace, prepare for war!” the crew scream. Their faces are red. John can see veins bulging.

He’s too slow to reply. He doesn’t say the words even though he knows them now by heart; even though he might as well get them tattooed into his skin like everyone else, might as well let Stirling do it himself and tie John down to the navy for good.

Stirling sees. Of course he sees. “Name, sailor.”

“Deacon, sir.”

“Deacon. You’re the governor’s boy.”

“Sir.”

“Do you know this man?”

Harris’ golden hair. His slim shoulders. The boyish pudge to his cheeks.

“No, sir.”

“Then you’ll have no problems disposing of him. Mutiny is punishable by death under His Majesty the King of England. And are you loyal to your king?”

“Yes, sir,” he says quietly.

“Are you loyal to your king?” Stirling bellows again.

“Yes, sir!” he shouts.

Stirling smiles, stepping closer. “It’s time for you to do a little growing up, Johnny boy,” he says, his voice practically a whisper. “Make a choice. Do you stand with your country?”

The gun is pressed into his hand, the grip cold and heavy. Around him the crew are practically frothing at the mouth. The officers are shifting uncomfortably.

Harris raises his head, but it’s Roger’s blue eyes John is met with—Roger’s small mouth, Roger’s hard jaw, Roger’s tangled hair and pleading gaze.

“Don’t do it, Deaky,” he whispers.

John raises the gun and pulls the trigger. The bullet punches a hole through Roger’s chest, blood immediately spraying across the deck and the front of John’s uniform. It spreads across Roger’s shirt, clogs his throat and makes him cough as he tries to speak, sending it dripping from his lips as he collapses onto the deck—

  


He shoots up in bed.

He can’t get enough air for a long moment, his breath leaving him in heaving wheezes, and it takes him a long moment to realize the insistent whine in his ears is coming from his own mouth. He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, but when that just has images of his dream flashing through his brain once more he removes them quickly, looking out the window instead.

His breathing slows gradually. It slows even more when he catches sight of Roger beside him, still curled peacefully into the blankets, the moonlight turning his skin a silvery purple. His arms are still sprawled across the mattress as if he’d been holding John before and now can’t figure out where he went.

John thinks about waking him for a minute. He thinks about shaking him gently until Roger mumbles in his sleep, blinks his pretty eyes open and pulls John back into his space once more. He thinks about cradling the warm weight of him until the coldness of his dreams fades away entirely.

And then he takes in the way the lines of Roger’s face have faded with sleep, and he decides against it.

He slides out of bed instead. He pulls his boots on silently, grabbing his now-dry jacket and pulling it over his shoulders. He walks toward the door on silent feet, leaving the chambers quietly and starting down the hallway.

He hadn’t noticed the hallway before, not really. The planks on the walls are old beams from ships, skeletons of barnacles still clinging to them, and he traces them gently with his fingers as he goes. The air is heavy with candle smoke and marine air, and he breathes it in greedily.

He makes his way down the stairs, through the grand entrance hall and to the harbor until he’s standing on the dock beside the great looming shadow of his ship—his gorgeous ship, nearly twice as tall as all of the other monoliths docked in the lagoon, the masts seeming to stretch on infinitely, the hull pristine yellow and blue-black and shining like a mussel shell. The sea has calmed now, the storm having passed and letting starlight shine down to play in the waves. The water is lapping at the pillars of the dock, the sound gentle and soothing, and he lets out a deep sigh as he sits down cross-legged at the dock’s edge.

He thinks of his dream as he leans down to dip the tips of his fingers into the water between himself and his ship. He thinks about the circumstances leading up to his captaincy. Funny, but in the here and now it’s almost impossible to associate it with anything negative. He reaches for the familiar pain, but though it’s there it seems like he can’t quite touch it. He’s completely at peace.

He runs his wet fingers across his bottom lip. The salt tastes good—grounding, soothing, undeniably corporeal.

He’s calm.

He stands from the dock, casting one last glance out at the horizon. The moon is shining on the waves, endlessly shifting and glittering, and he smiles as he turns and heads back toward the fortress.

He traces his path, following the barnacle-lined hallways until he gets to Roger’s door. He opens it silently, hangs his jacket over the chair by the desk and toes off his boots before sliding back under the blankets.

Roger grunts as he does, his body half-exposed where he’s kicked the sheets away. He’s burning like a furnace the way he always does in sleep, and when his fingers meet the cold skin of John’s chest he hums contentedly and moves closer, pressing a sleepy kiss against his collarbone.

“Where’d you go?” he murmurs, his voice rough and low.

John buries his face against the top of his head, wrapping his body around Roger’s own. The pillow smells like both of them, warm and comforting, and he sighs happily. “Just out to the dock.”

“You alright?”

“Had a nightmare.”

“You should have woken me,” Roger says through a yawn.

John smiles and pulls him closer. “I’m alright now. Don’t worry about it.”

Roger hums, his breathing rapidly evening out as sleep takes him. Lulled by his breathing and the sound of the waves outside, John joins him.

  


Roger is sitting up in bed the next time he opens his eyes.

The sunlight is filtering in through the window, It must be early morning, still. Roger’s glasses are perched on his nose and he as a book closed on his lap, using the hard leather surface to prop up the piece of paper on which he’s writing some sort of letter. John reaches out to curl his hand around Roger’s thigh, and Roger smiles at him.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss him, firm and sweet.

John sighs into it, curling closer to his hip when Roger pulls away. “What are you writing?”

“Just gathering some notes together,” Roger replies distractedly, flipping over one of the other papers lying beside him.

“Notes?” John murmurs, pressing his face against Roger’s hip.

“Mhmm,” Roger says, not looking up. He reaches down to scratch his free hand through John’s scalp, and the sensation combined with the feeling of being half-ignored sends a fizzy feeling up his spine. “There’s a meeting later about our strategy for the next two weeks. Me, all of the captains, their first mates, my lieutenants…”

“Am I invited?”

“You’re a captain, aren’t you?” Roger asks. He scribbles something out on his paper. “It’ll be nice to have you there.”

John hums, pressing a kiss against his hip. When Roger doesn’t react he does it again, nuzzling into the skin softly.

Roger’s pen stills. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” he says quietly, even as he lets the hand on the inside of Roger’s thigh creep closer to his crotch.

“You sure?”

“Mhmm.”

Roger grins wryly, still not looking up from the paper on his lap. He spreads his thighs slightly, the outside of his calf nudging between John’s thighs, and laughs quietly when John gasps. “Doesn’t seem like nothing.”

John sighs and rolls closer, latching his mouth onto Roger’s hip bone. He sucks hard at the skin, letting his teeth graze against it as he marks him, and Roger laughs breathlessly before putting his papers quickly aside.

John barely waits until they’re out of the way before he’s moving, making his way over Roger’s leg and kissing at the pale skin on the inside of his thigh. Roger gasps when he nips it sharply, his fingers momentarily tightening in John’s hair, and John smiles.

“Don’t tease,” Roger murmurs.

“You haven’t changed,” John chides. He sucks briefly at the skin just above where his cock is resting against his stomach, and Roger gasps softly. “Impatient.”

“Impatient? It’s been two bloody years!”

“You haven’t had a blowjob in two years?” John asks, amused.

“I didn’t like the idea of it,” Roger says. “Twice. That’s it.”

“Relax. I don’t mind.”

“Did you?”

“A few times,” John shrugs. “Nobody I wanted to stick around. Nobody like you.”

Roger nods, his eyes soft. “Likewise.”

John stifles a smile as he angles his cock upright until he can take the length of him into his mouth. The weight of him against his tongue is familiar and somehow comforting, and he takes him deeper with a happy hum until Roger is nudging against the back of his throat.

“Fuck,” Roger whispers, his head tilting back until it thunks against the weathered oak slats of the headboard.

John sighs through his nose as he sucks him down, viciously fighting his gag reflex. It’s been too long—it’s been _years_ —and he knows he’s out of practice, but despite it he feels the two of them falling into each other like puzzle pieces, still fitting perfectly and working in sync after so long. Despite everything, he can still read Roger’s minute shifts and tiny sounds like a book.

That’s why he knows to hold back on him, to keep his pace slow and suck him in lazy pulses until Roger’s hands are scrabbling to grip his hair, not pushing him or guiding him, just holding him as he allows John to continue his pace. He moans finally, and when John looks up at him Roger’s already looking back, his pupils blown and his eyes heavy-lidded.

He tugs lightly at John’s hair once before rubbing a thumb over his hollowed cheek. When he traces the side of his stretched lips John’s own eyes flutter shut for a split second. He remembers himself just as quickly and pries them back open. He doesn’t want to look away from Roger, not for a second.

Not after everything.

Roger seems to be having even more trouble focusing, though. When John pulls back for a moment to tease his tongue over the head of his cock his head falls back as he groans, and all of a sudden all John wants is to hear the sound again, and again, and again.

So he does.

He repeats the motion over and over until Roger is arching up beneath his hands, tugging at John’s hair, and finally letting out a low groan. He comes in John’s mouth and John wards off his surprised sputter before swallowing it easily, the taste lingering on his lips like seawater.

When he looks up Roger has slouched slightly against the headboard, an elbow thrown over his eyes as he gathers his breath. John turns his head to press a kiss to the inside of his other wrist, and the fingers in his hair scratch at his scalp soothingly in response.

“You’re incredible,” Roger murmurs finally, letting his arm fall aside and regarding John with bright eyes. His lips curve up into a dopey grin.

“You’re gorgeous,” John replies, kissing his wrist again before biting at the skin there.

“Oh, get up here,” Roger says, still loose limbed.

It’s a scramble of flying sheets and tangled limbs from there as Roger drags John bodily toward him, settling him against the pillows so that Roger can loom over him. He presses a kiss soundly against John’s lips and then spends a moment just looking at him, his lips turning up slowly into a smile.

“What?” John asks, bemused.

“Nothing,” Roger murmurs. His smile is toeing the line toward dopey now. “I just love you.”

“Sap.”

“You love it,” he replies, his left hand trailing down John’s stomach until it reaches the head of his cock and circles it, stroking once slowly.

John’s breath leaves him on a sigh. He sinks into it: Roger’s touch, his smell, the sounds he makes. “I do,” he breathes. “I love you.” He arches up into Roger’s grip as it tightens minutely, his hand falling easily into the rhythm he must still have ingrained into his muscle memory because it has John’s brain promptly rolling over. He moans, his eyes fluttering shut.

“You sound so good,” Roger says quietly. “You’re always so noisy. I don’t think it would do to have someone overhear you, do you?”

His fingers brush against John’s lips and John lets his mouth fall open without thinking about it. He hums when Roger’s first two fingers press in and brush across his tongue, and he sucks on them lightly just to see the way Roger’s eyes darken.

“Get them wet for me,” Roger tells him, voice low. He gasps softly when John circles them with his tongue and then does it again when John bites him playfully, huffing out a laugh as he pulls them away. “Brat,” he grins.

John just smiles up at him, eyeing Roger’s mouth until Roger gets the idea and ducks down to kiss him, long and deep and slow. Or maybe he meant it as a distraction, because the next second the slick pads of his fingers are tracing between his thighs and across his hole, his mouth swallowing the gasp that John can’t quite stifle.

“Okay?” he murmurs into the space between them, and John nods.

“Go.”

He presses one in slowly, his other hand still working John’s cock, and John sighs at the stretch. Roger doesn’t rush it; he gives him a long second to adjust and then moves gradually, even the small movements making John squirm in his grip, pleasure still coming in waves from the hand on his cock. When Roger adds a second finger he moans, and Roger leans forward again to kiss him, muffling the sound and letting out a soft groan of his own as John sucks on his tongue.

He finds John’s spot as easily as always, and from there the world becomes a blur.

Roger stays close in his space, John’s hips practically on his lap, the blue of his eyes and pink of his lips filling John’s vision. Everything else fades away, the edges of his world shrinking down to the space where the two of them end. He sighs and Roger kisses the corner of his mouth sweetly.

“So good,” Roger is murmuring against his cheek. “There you go, let go for me.”

A hard crook of his fingers combined with his warm hand twisting around the head of his cock once more have John bucking between the two sensations as his pleasure spikes. He dissolves into waves of feeling, his eyes drifting closed against as he sees sparks, and when he’s finally self-aware again his spine feels like a puddle and Roger is curled around him, whispering into his ear.

“—so good for me, you’re so beautiful. So good for me, baby. I love you so much.”

John hums. He thinks about rolling closer, then decides he doesn’t have the energy. “Love you,” he murmurs in reply.

Roger kisses his cheek. “Love you. I missed you.”

“You missed me for the sex.”

Roger laughs. “I didn’t _just_ miss you for the sex.”

“That’s probably the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” John deadpans.

Roger laughs again and pulls him closer, resting his face against John’s collarbone as he settles. It’s nice, being close to him like this again. A sea breeze rolls in through the open windows, the massive lanterns outside swaying with it. He can see the edge of the harbor below where the docks meet the sparkling cerulean waves, the edges of the mountains bordering the lagoon interrupting his view of the open water stretching toward the horizon. The stern of _Queen Elizabeth_ is just visible from here, and he smiles.

“We should probably get ready,” Roger murmurs, kissing his shoulder.

John groans, stretching his legs as far as he can until his calves burn and then curling back into Roger’s space. “Now?”

“Not right now,” Roger hums. “Soon.”

“How soon?”

“I dunno. Why?”

John sighs happily and captures his lower lip between his own, suppressing a smile at Roger’s startled sound. “Were you planning on stretching me open only to then _not_ fuck me, or…”

He takes great pleasure in watching Roger’s pupils dilate.

Roger leans forward to kiss him again, the sweetness giving way to urgency and raw need, and John can feel his own toes curl even through the lingering afterglow. He whimpers as Roger pulls him closer and tangles their legs together, his cock already half-hard again against John’s thigh, and—

Someone knocks on the door.

Roger pulls away from him with an irritated huff. “What?” he calls, making no effort to move any further.

“People are looking for you,” a voice calls, muffled through the thick wood. “They have questions ahead of the meeting.”

Roger flops backward against the pillows. “Well tell ‘em to fuck off, Crys!”

“Unfortunately that’s not my job,” the person on the other side of the door replies dryly.

“Who is it?” John whispers.

“Crystal. My second in command,” Roger mutters before raising his voice again. “Can it not wait, like. Half an hour?”

“Half an hour?” John whispers, raising his eyebrows.

“What, are you forgetting what a quickie is?” Roger whispers back.

“They wanted you an hour ago,” Crystal says boredly.

John leans forward and pecks Roger’s lips before rolling out of bed and digging a pair of breeches out of Roger’s closet. He throws a second pair Roger’s way. Roger makes no effort to catch them, letting them smack him in the face.

“Don’t they know that question time is after the meeting, not before?” Roger whines loudly.

“Seeing as I’m guessing our newest captain will be at the meeting and all of their questions are about him, no,” Crystal replies.

“Like it’s their business,” Roger mutters mutinously, but he stands finally and begins to get dressed, so John will count it as a win.

“What?” Crystal calls.

“Nothing.”

He’s got his own problems to worry about, anyway. Like the glaringly obvious love bite high on his throat, which his hair only barely covers. Or like the redness that’s lingering in his cheeks. Or the way his lips are kiss-bruised and his eyes are a little glassy. Or the way that Roger looks no better.

Fuck.

“Speaking of our newest captain,” Crystal muses from the other side of the door.

“What?” Roger calls back, giving up on buttoning his shirt halfway up and tucking it hurriedly into his breeches before rapidly pulling his boots on. John buckles his pistol holster, only belatedly realizing the shirt he’s wearing is the one Roger gave him last night. He eyes his own where it’s hanging over a chair across the room before shaking his head sharply and reaching for his sword. He doesn’t have the time or the effort.

“He wasn’t in the barracks this morning,” Crystal says. “I didn’t want to cause a panic over it.”

“Panic?” Roger calls back, fumbling over his sword sheath with one foot still halfway out of his boot. John steps forward quickly and buckles it for him, and Roger presses a quick kiss to his jaw in thanks.

“I can sneak out the window,” John whispers.

“You absolutely cannot. It’s four stories down and they—”

“Yeah. I figured our people would probably be rather cross if they realized a rogue captain was loose in town,” Crystal continues, his voice flat.

“It’ll be easy,” John whispers to Roger.

“Just walk out with me.”

“He’ll see.”

“Oh, who the fuck cares?”

“Roger?” Crystal calls. “You wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you?”

Roger rolls his eyes and hauls the door open. Crystal’s unimpressed stare lands first on his commander, and then on the captain lurking just behind his shoulder doing his best to blend in to the wallpaper. “Captain Meddows,” Crystal says, voice dry as the Sahara, “what a surprise.”

“Crystal, I presume,” he says weakly.

“Mmh. Charmed.”

“Shaddup,” Roger grunts, shouldering past Crystal and starting down the hall. “And not a word about this, you hear? It’s a complicated situation and—”

“And I don’t want to hear about it,” Crystal finishes. “I won’t say a word if you don’t.”

“Long lost lovers,” John explains, his voice clipped. “You know.”

“I really don’t.”

“It’s been two years,” Roger says.

“How nice. Well, I’ve got an agenda for you to look over,” he says, passing Roger a piece of parchment. “John, your crew was asking after you. You’ll need to bring your first mate to the meeting.”

“Right,” John says quickly. “I’ll go brief him.”

“You have a while if you want to stay around,” Roger offers.

“No, I should probably go take care of it,” John sighs. Take care of choosing a first mate, more like.

Roger frowns, a little forlorn. “Alright. See you in a bit, babe.”

John hums, and he’s not quite able to tamp down the dopey smile that stretches across his lips only to be quickly mirrored on Roger’s face. “Yeah, alright,” he says softly, only looking back once before starting down the stairs to the ground floor.

The last thing he hears as he walks out of earshot is Crystal huffing out a laugh. “I hope you know that if you act like this at the meeting you’re both going to be losing your terrifying images and all that.”

“Small price to pay,” Roger replies.

The tiny smile on John’s lips lasts nearly halfway to the barracks, but the warm feeling in his chest lingers for far longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I was going to be doing around 4K every chapter, but they've just been gradually getting longer and longer. It really do be like that. There's a little more fluff ahead, and then the drama will start escalating. Let me know what you think! Love you all <3


	4. Chapter 4

The air is thick and humid with the smell of saline and beeswax.

The meeting is held in the grand hall through which John had already passed the night before. The scenery is nothing new, but the massive oak table and cluster of throne-like chairs that have been pulled into the center of the space certainly is. Beside him Ratty whistles lowly, not having entered the space before.

Enlisting Ratty as his first mate had been easier than he’d thought. He’d simply marched into the barracks, picked him out of the crowd and asked him flat-out, turning a blind eye to the eyebrow Ratty had raised at the dark bruise on his neck.

“Captain,” Ratty said slowly.

“Ratty,” John had replied flatly.

“You’re looking well.”

“Cheers.” He knew exactly how he looked. If Ratty wasn’t going to comment on it directly then neither was he.

As if Roger’s better off, anyway.

“There’s a meeting in a few minutes,” John told him. “I thought you’d join me, as my first mate.”

Ratty snorted. “It would be an honor. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, though. I don’t know shit about being a first mate.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t know a lot about being a captain, but here we are.”

Ratty smiled wryly. “Sensible.”

And now here they are.

He pulls out the empty chair at the end of the table, glancing around as he does. He recognizes a handful of the captains and officers, though some are still strangers. Roger sits at the table’s head, Veronica standing on one side and Spike on the other, and when John settles he pounds the table with a hammer that John can only assume they’re using as a gavel. It pounds a handful of dents into the wood, joining the collection already scattered there from previous meetings.

“This meeting is called to order, now that we’ve reached full assembly. I’d like to welcome our newest recruit, Captain John D—Meddows, whose crew has mutinied against the Royal Navy.”

“We’re taking loyalists now?” someone pipes up from the back.

Roger’s jaw hardens. “We’re taking anyone who is loyal to our cause and ourselves. Beggars really can’t be choosers, which I’m sure you’re all well aware of by now.”

A murmur runs through the assembly, but in the face of Roger’s fierce glare nobody speaks.

Roger clears his throat. “Great. Now, since our last meeting there have been six new Armada attacks on stations in Barbados, Trinidad and one just south of Haiti. Spike?”

Spike nods, pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper from his jacket. “Three scouts spotted ships heading North to Florida, and there’s been increased activity surrounding Trinidad. That’s up from last month. He’s looking for something in the area.”

“Rumor is it’s the heart of the sea,” one of the other captains pipes up.

“Well, he won’t be finding that in Florida of all places,” Veronica mutters.

“Commander,” the same captain from before says. “Might I propose we counterstrike? It’s clear what his next play is. We need to be prepared in case—”

“I’ll stop you right there,” Roger says quickly. “All due respect, Phoebe, but the heart of the sea cannot be found. We don’t have anything to worry about on that front.”

“Well, it’s just that perhaps if we tried to find it first we’d take the wind out of his sails, so to speak.”

“That may be true, but our efforts would be as in vain as his are.”

“The Royal Navy is looking for it, too,” Spike pipes up. “Right, John?”

John gives him a pained look as all eyes turn his way. “There were rumors of it,” he starts slowly.

“Your old captain was looking for it.”

“He was, but there was no indication that he was under orders from high command.”

“So he was disobeying orders?”

John grimaces. “There’s a high chance he was losing his mind. It’s like R—like the commander said,” he recovers quickly, and Roger sends him a tiny nod from the other side of the table. “The heart of the sea isn’t something that can be found. It’s the quest of a madman.”

That’s met by an uncomfortable silence.

“Taylor is after it, though,” Crystal murmurs.

“Then he’s a fool for chasing it,” Roger says dryly.

“But it’s not just rumor,” Phoebe pipes up. “I’ve heard stories. The Special sails with the heart of the sea, and with the sea at its command.”

“The Special?” John says under his breath.

“Davy Jones’ ship,” Veronica replies quietly from beside him. “It reaps the dead. Big hulking red thing, or that’s how the stories go. Seeing it is a bad omen.”

“A red ship?”

“Mhmm.”

“What kind of bad omen?”

“Death is following you. It’s only legend.”

“It’s not legend,” Phoebe says, overhearing her. “I saw it following my ship right before we killed our former captain. And quite honestly, if Taylor is after the heart of the sea then Jones is the first one he’ll go after.”

“It’s not Jones he’ll attack,” Crystal says flatly. “Like he’d even have any luck hunting down a ghost ship.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the heart of the sea cannot be found,” Crystal says boredly.

Roger bangs the hammer against the table again. “This isn’t a matter that should concern us presently. I wouldn’t worry about the heart of the sea, or even about Jones. Our material problems seem to be more pressing.”

“Which are?”

“The most recent attacks on our outposts,” Roger says. “If there’s movement anywhere near this island we need to know about it, and we need to be ready to address it. Protecting this stronghold should be our number one concern. Phoebe, I want you on patrol of the southern waters. Sheffield, you’re to take north. Do not engage with the Royal Navy.”

Veronica frowns. “Sorry, sir. Do _not_ engage?”

“Aye.”

“That would be a significant change in the way we do things.”

“Yeah, well. These are different times. We’ll need to conserve our manpower, at least until we can figure out some sort of deal.”

“Deal,” John echoes flatly.

Roger nods.

“You want to make a deal with the Royal Navy?”

“It’s been in the works for a little while, now. They want Taylor gone just as much as we do. If they can somehow stand back and let us take care of him—”

“Then you’ll just have to fight them later on,” John finishes for him. He’s distantly aware of the people around the table sucking in a slow breath, probably due to his own back talk. He can’t bring it in himself to care. “Not to mention, once that time comes your strength will be significantly weakened after facing Taylor anyway.”

“Not if we disappear,” Roger argues. “Not if they can’t find us.”

“That’s your solution? To run?”

“What, would you rather have me stay and fight?” Roger snaps.

“I’d rather you not fight at all!”

“Careful, Captain,” Sheffield says lowly. “I thought your loyalties to the navy were behind you.”

Roger waves him off with an angry hand. “Listen, the more people I can keep out of danger—if I can keep _you_ out of danger—”

“But it’s not just about me, is it?” John gets out. “It’s about every person in this room. It’s about all the people who serve under them. You can strike a deal with the navy, sure. That doesn’t mean they won’t turn on you in the end.”

“Your insolence will be punished, _Captain,_ ” Sheffield grits out.

Again, Roger waves him off. “What would you have me do then, John?” he asks softly. “What would you have any of us do?”

John shakes his head shortly. “You can hide.”

“Like hell.”

“I’m serious. Maybe that’s the better part of valor. Maybe saving lives is the better part of valor.”

Roger frowns. “You don’t get it. We’ve tried that. We’ve all run away at some point—even you. Sometimes that’s not enough. It’s time we took a stand.”

“Give the command and we’ll be ready,” Veronica says softly.

“Not now. Soon,” Roger says. “We’ve opened a channel of communication with the navy. They _will_ answer,” he says pointedly, meeting John’s eyes, “and when they give the go-ahead we _will_ fight. Between us and them, Taylor doesn’t stand a chance.”

Ratty and John exchange a glance. Neither of them speak.

“In the meantime,” Roger says to the group at large, “you know your posts. You know what’s expected of you. All available ships, I want you in pairs of two conducting raids on the nearest colonized islands. One will take point and the other will cover. Is that clear?”

“Which pairs?” Sheffield asks.

“Same as last week, unless anyone has a problem with that.”

“Commander,” John says, and Roger’s eyes shoot to his. “Does that include my ship?”

Roger shakes his head. “ _Queen Elizabeth_ is to remain docked until further notice. Maybe tomorrow we’ll send you out for a test drive. Are there any other questions?” He glances around the room for a moment before banging the hammer against the table. “Dismissed. I’ll see you out there.”

The crowd files away quickly, off to various different parts of the port. John lingers behind, Ratty at his side.

“The navy won’t cooperate with any deal they make,” Ratty murmurs. “They don’t consort with pirates. That alone is an act of treason.”

“I know,” John replies. “I don’t think they’re going to listen to us on that, though.”

“So, what? What do we do?”

John purses his lips. “Give me a little time to think it over. I can try to convince him in the meantime, maybe.”

“What’s the deal with you and him, then?” Ratty asks, wiggling his eyebrows.

John rolls his eyes, then starts when he sees Roger murmur a few last words to Veronica and Crystal before rounding the table toward them. “Wait for me outside, alright?”

“I thought it be best that we convene the crew for a debrief.”

“I know. I just need a minute.”

Ratty looks like he has a smart comeback on the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t share it, just mutters a quick acknowledgement before starting toward the door.

“Captain,” Roger says.

“There’s hardly any need for that.”

“It’s important to keep up appearances, isn’t it?” Roger shrugs. “I can’t have people thinking there’s some sort of favoritism going on here.”

“Even when there is?”

He shrugs again. “Did you want a word?”

“Yeah,” John says quietly. “Listen, the Royal Navy isn’t going to go along with any sort of deal you want to cut. You know that, right? They’ll double cross you in a heartbeat.”

“I know,” Roger muses. “I’m ready for that, even.”

“Are you?”

“We’ve got a few tricks up our sleeves, John,” Roger chides. “We’re pirates. It’s what we do.”

“Don’t give me that,” John says shortly. “No more fairy tale bullshit.”

“Not everything’s a fairy tale,” Roger replies. He tugs one of his necklaces out from beneath his shirt and holds it up: a thin cord, a green glass ball no bigger than a cherry hanging from the end, encased in criss-crossing knots like a fishing float.

“What’s that?” John asks, unimpressed.

Roger rolls his eyes. “It’s a piece of eight.”

“No it’s not.”

“Not _that_ kind of piece of eight,” Roger says quickly. “It’s a piece of eight from the Brethren Court.”

John stares at him, nonplussed. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“It’s a group of pirate lords,” Roger says flatly. “There are ten of us—well, nine. We rule on the pirate code, and if need be we can command all pirate vessels on the water against a common enemy.”

“Why don’t you just command them to take out the Armada?”

Roger raises his eyebrows silently.

John huffs. “Taylor’s part of the court, too,” he finishes for him.

“He’s not just part of it. He’s the king.”

John blinks. “He’s the—”

“If we manage to take him out, I inherit his place. I can call the entire court against the Navy.”

“Hang on—”

“With that many vessels at our command they’ll leave us alone. They wouldn’t dare go up against us.”

“Roger, this is madness.”

“Fight madness with madness,” Roger counters.

“The phrase is ‘fight fire with fire’, and I’m pretty sure it’s cautionary.”

“Semantics,” Roger says smoothly, stepping into his space. “Don’t worry about us,” he murmurs. “We’ve been alright so far.”

“Chasing dreams and myths.”

Roger’s eyes flicker down to his mouth as he speaks, but he hesitates for a long beat. “It depends on what you qualify as a myth,” he says slowly.

“What does that mean?” John murmurs.

“I think you already know,” Roger says imploringly.

John thinks about the journal still resting in his jacket pocket. He thinks about the painting of the necklaces, the same necklace Roger showed him just moments prior. He thinks about the red ship he can’t seem to stop seeing out of the corner of his eye.

“I need to talk to you later,” he says quietly. “I have some questions about a few things.”

Roger nods. “Dreams and myths?”

“Something along those lines. Your quarters?”

Roger leans forward to kiss him sweetly on the mouth, and John reaches up to trace his cheek with a gentle thumb before he can stop himself. “Yours now, too. I’ve got some things to take care of. Come find me after dark.”

John nods shortly, and Roger steps neatly out of his grasp before leaving in the same direction Veronica and Crystal went.

John heads through the massive doors at the front of the room leading out into the dirt street below. Ratty is leaning against one of the wooden columns. He pushes away from the surface and toward John, falling into step with him easily. “What’s all that about, then?”

“Just a few last questions I had,” John says smoothly.

Ratty huffs out a laugh. “I don’t care about _that._ What’s going on between the two of you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit. You sleep in his quarters, you come to the meeting looking like you’ve been fucked within an inch of your life—”

John shoots him a glare. “I don’t think—”

“—And there’s clearly already something between you two! It’s no mystery, John!”

John rolls his eyes. “It’s in your head.”

“You’re such a fucking liar,” Ratty laughs. “What, like it’s a big deal? I wouldn’t hold it against you. He’s a piece. A high-ranking piece, too. Hell, I’d try and have a go if it weren’t for the fact we’re all at his mercy. Although I can see how that could be kind of hot. Hell, have you thought about sharing?”

“Watch it,” John warns.

Ratty’s eyebrows just shoot up as a grin spreads across his face. “Nothing going on, huh?”

John rolls his eyes again. “Where’s the crew, then?”

“Spoilsport. They’re onboard, giving her a good cleaning now that we’re finally docked.”

John turns down the dock, his boots thumping against the wood of the gangplank. The mooring lines have been cleaned up and secured since their rushed docking last night, the ropes coiled neatly against the dock. He weaves neatly between them as he approaches the ship before starting up the ramp and climbing aboard.

“Captain on deck!” someone shouts.

He waves his hand. “At ease. There’s no need for all the pomp. Gather round.”

The crew give up whatever tasks they’re busy doing, gradually moving until they’re clustered around him and Ratty. The two men scrubbing the deck on their hands and knees look particularly grateful for the interruption.

John takes a breath. “I’ve just been in a meeting with the Commander and some of the other captains to hear our orders going forward. The good news is we’re looking at a break, at least for the next day or two. They don’t seem too keen to be putting us into combat.”

“Who’s the Commander?” someone pipes up from the back.

“You met him last night,” John says, a bit confused. “He’s—”

“They mean who is he to you,” Ratty clarifies at his side.

John rolls his eyes. “That’s not what they mean.”

“No, that’s what we mean,” Harris pipes up, his eyes wide and innocent.

John huffs. “Can’t this wait? We have more— _much_ more pressing issues to talk over.”

“Well, it _can_ wait,” Harris starts.

“We just don’t really want it to,” Ratty finishes for him.

John sighs. He thinks for a minute about lying, but he already knows they’ll see through it. “This stays between us, got it? If it gets out it has the potential to damage both our relationship with The Cross as well as the Commander’s relationship with his own people.”

“Not a word,” Ratty promises.

“I knew him as a kid,” John starts. “Back then he was known as Roger Meddows. We rescued him from a shipwreck in the middle of the Atlantic when I was making the crossing from England. He’s just an old friend. That’s it.”

“That’s it? You’re sleeping in his bed and that’s _it?”_

“Who are you, my father?” John mutters under his breath.

“I heard that.”

“So, what?” he hears someone call from the back of the crowd. “It turns out their newest captain has the same surname as their commander, and now they’re sharing a bed? Do they all think you’re married or something?”

“I don’t think that’s so much a problem for them,” John starts, “seeing as they all know him by the name of Roger Taylor.”

A general murmur of surprise spreads through the crowd.

“I know,” John says quickly. “It’s complicated, alright? He committed a mutiny against the Armada, just like we mutinied against the navy.”

“You guys really are destined for each other,” Ratty coos.

John rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”

“This really could be worse though, right? If anything it gives us an advantage,” Harris says. “Here we were worried that they’d be pushing us around because they don’t trust us, but you’ve already got the Commander’s trust and loyalty regardless.”

John grimaces. As much as he cares about the safety of the crew, using his relationship as a bartering token isn’t something he’s willing to do.

“Or it means the Commander can push us around even more,” Ratty mutters darkly.

John raises his eyebrows. “If you think I’m compromised and unfit to serve, go ahead and speak up.”

Nobody says anything. For a beat, he almost wishes they would. He imagines the weight of his responsibilities removed, his job given to someone else, the rest of his days spent lounging around Roger’s quarters and trailing behind him to sit in on meetings.

Pipe dreams.

He clears his throat. “Well, then. That’s the agenda for the time being. We’re on standby awaiting orders. As long as this ship remains ready to set sail, your duties are attended to and you don’t make trouble for any of our hosts, you’re free to do as you please. Are there any other questions?”

He looks through the crowd for a minute, but nobody says anything. Harris meets his eyes and shakes his head.

“Alright, then,” John says softly. “Finish up your duties here. Ratty will be here to overlook them. You’re all free to spend the afternoon however you please.”

“Yes, captain.”

He turns, heading toward the door to the captain’s quarters. As much as the room sends shivers down his spine there must be something else there that he can use—something that will help him understand what’s happening.

There isn’t.

He spends all afternoon in the dim room, lighting the lanterns when dusk turns to night as he pours over old charts and letters. Most of the things in the desk are just old navy correspondences that are as dry as they are unhelpful. John sets yet another piece of paper aside into the gathering pile on the desk with a sigh.

He tugs the journal out of his pocket, flicking it open and flipping through the odd assortment of drawings and paintings. He pointedly moves past the one of himself and the other sketches of the crew, settling on the one of the giant squid. The thin pen lines have somehow ingrained themselves into his mind; the image is as familiar as if he’d spent every day of his life glancing at it.

_The edge of the world,_ Stirling’s odd spidery script says, the words following the lines of the tentacles twirling across the page. _To the edge of the world and back again and back again and back again and_

He flips the page over, the paper sticking and catching on itself, and frowns. He digs his knife out of its sheath, sliding it between the edges of the pages and gently working them apart. When they finally fall open it’s to a detailed drawing of a ship.

Where a figurehead would normally be is only a gaping maw, not unlike the ancient ships John remembers from books. This one is lined with driftwood and jagged planks making up rough, sharp teeth. The bottom of the jaw just barely clears the waves, long strips of seaweed and scum caught in the wood. The hull isn’t painted, just stained and waterlogged from decades of use. It’s dark and dirty, but a hint of warm red shines through. John thinks it might be cherry.

_Hear these words, for I have a story._

John pauses, rubbing the paper between his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully.

_Once upon a time there was a captain who fell in love with the sea, and he sacrificed everything for her, even his soul. He was cursed to work ten years of sweat and toil just to spend one day with her on land. Ten long years he toiled, but on that final fated day she never came._

He closes the journal.

He’s no closer to understanding any of this. The frustration wells up in his chest all at once. The edge of the world— _he’s_ gone to the edge of the world for one thing and one thing only—one _person_ only. He never wanted to be a captain. He never wanted to get tied up in all this.

He extinguishes the lamp quickly and leaves the captain’s quarters, shutting the door perhaps harder than necessary and stomping down the gangplank, to the end of the dock and up the street toward the fortress. He’s tired, he’s hungry, he still doesn’t know what he’s going to do now that he’s probably been separated from his town for good, and he needs to be back with the one person who will remind him that all of this has been worth it.

Roger’s door is open a crack and he can hear voices from inside.

“—from the other side of the shoals you should be able to make it,” Roger is saying, and when John pushes the door open and stomps through it’s to see that it’s Crystal he’s talking to, a woman he doesn’t recognize peering over her shoulder at the chart spread across Roger’s desk.

The three of them look up sharply at his arrival, the woman’s eyebrows rising while Crystal’s mouth flattens. John doesn’t pay them any mind, just looks at Roger and watches as his eyes darken. He sets his pen down in the inkwell.

“You two,” Roger says softly, “out. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”

“Sir,” the woman says curtly, almost managing to hide her smile.

John doesn’t even wait until the door clicks shut before crowding Roger against the desk. Distantly he’s aware of footsteps retreating down the hall, but he doesn’t have half a mind to pay attention to it. All he’s aware of is the way Roger’s breath has sped up imperceptibly and the corners of his mouth are curving upward.

“I’ve had a bad day,” John says against his lips.

“A bad day? Was it because I wasn’t there?”

John huffs, leaning down and ignoring the way Roger chases his lips. He latches his mouth onto the soft skin just below the juncture of his jawbone and Roger hisses out a laugh.

“That’s going to be impossible to cover up, you know.”

“Good,” John mutters.

“You’re in a mood, aren’t you?” Roger says, toying with John’s hair. “What happened?”

John huffs again and shakes his head. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t really even want to think about it. He wishes the two of them could just simply exist together, separate from the politics and violence and the never-ending threat that they’ll be torn apart once more. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he murmurs.

Roger hums, scratching gently at the base of his head. “Need someone to fuck it out of you?” he asks lowly, and John’s breath catches.

“Something like that.”

John leans up and kisses him firmly, keeping it chaste until Roger grows impatient and pulls him readily closer, leading him in even while giving John control of the kiss. It goes to his head, his mind spinning in dizzy circles. He swallows Roger’s gasp when he presses his thigh upward between Roger’s legs, trapping him between his own body and the edge of the table.

Roger lets out a soft moan when John bites hard on his lip. His wrists rest on John’s shoulders, fingers plucking at his collar. He shucks his jacket quickly and throws it over the back of the chair before gripping Roger’s hips and setting his ass on top of the table, slightly wrinkling the charts. Roger just hums into his mouth, sucking on his tongue as he hooks his legs around John’s hips. John has to reach behind himself to unbuckle Roger’s boots and drag them off.

“It must be a lot of strain, commanding an army like that,” John mutters, half to himself. Roger’s boot hits the floor with a _clunk_ , followed closely by the second one, and John pulls away slightly to begin working on Roger’s shirt. “Lot of energy, huh?”

“Someone needs to do it,” Roger says, his voice already quiet and thin.

John hums at that, slowly working the last pearl button open. He purposefully grazes the backs of his knuckles against the warm skin of Roger’s stomach and grins to himself when the muscles tense at his touch. “You do a good job at it,” he says softly. “I’m sure people tell you all the time.”

He drags the tails of his shirt from beneath his waistband. The collar falls open further and then down one shoulder, revealing the long lines of his arm and pooling on the desk beneath him. His skin is beautifully flushed, and John delights in kissing across his collarbone gently. Roger sighs above him.

“You look good doing it, too,” he murmurs. “Do people ever tell you about that?”

Roger’s fingers tighten against his shoulder. “John,” he starts slowly, but then seems to forget what he’s saying.

John raises his eyebrows. “No? Pity. Though on second thought, maybe I’m glad they don’t.”

He starts on Roger’s belt buckle, the leather sliding cleanly through the metal clasp, before tugging it sharply and setting it aside. Roger tugs insistently on his shirt and he laughs under his breath.

“Then again, I think after today it’s pretty obvious what exactly we were doing up here.”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Roger says, a hint of sass drifting through the soft cadence of his voice. “You looked fucked out today.”

John hums, grinding into him until he gasps. “And whose fault was that again?”

“I’d say both of ours, really,” Roger breathes, gasping again when John tugs at his waistband. He rocks his hips up, clinging hard to John’s shoulders until John can work the fabric out from under him. He works it carefully down his ankles before discarding it into a corner.

Roger’s cheeks are flushed when he finally looks back up at him, his cock half hard against his thigh and his fingers slightly shaky as he works open the buttons on John’s shirt. He’s gorgeous: completely, unequivocally gorgeous, and all at once John can’t stop looking.

Roger glances up at him, away, and then does a double take as a smile stretches across his lips. “What?”

John leans forward and kisses the curve of it, ingraining it to memory: the shape of his happiness, the surprised little huff of laughter Roger lets escape through his nose, the brightness in his eyes warring with the way his pupils are blown wide. “Nothing,” he murmurs. “Love you.”

Roger seems to sink further into his own happiness at that, the blush spreading across his cheeks in an uncustomary display of shyness. John loves that he gets to see him like this; others have, and Roger has said as much, but that doesn’t make him any less lucky that he gets to see it, too.

Roger finally manages to get his shirt open just as John sneaks a hand up the outside of his bare thigh and to his cock, wrapping a warm hand around him and giving him a loose stroke. Roger’s eyelashes flutter.

“Yeah?” he whispers.

Roger nods, leaning forward and letting his forehead rest against John’s shoulder, shifting with John’s next stroke to mouth at the skin of his throat. He’s sweet like this and it goes straight to John’s head.

“If I had my way this is the only thing we’d ever have to do,” John murmurs into his ear, holding Roger closer as he shudders. “Just this right here. No meetings, no politics, no war. Just this.”

Roger burrows closer into him, nodding against his shoulder.

“Yeah?” he asks him quietly. He slows his hand even further and lets it drag against the skin roughly the way he knows Roger likes, and gets a moan for his efforts. “You’d like that?”

“Deaky,” Roger whispers into his ear, squirming his hips. John knows he wants him to go faster, and it’s for that very reason that he doesn’t. He keeps up his same slow pace, Roger hardening rapidly in his hand.

“But you’re so good at your job,” John purrs, and Roger stiffens. He’d forgotten about what praise did to him. He isn’t sure how, and he delights in the regained knowledge. “People love you. You make such a good commander, Rog, you’re always so beautifully in control.”

Roger lets out a ragged breath, his hips twitching up into John’s grip. John pushes his foreskin down, reveling in Roger’s tiny moan when he wipes up the beaded moisture from the tip with his thumb, using it to ease the way.

“You don’t need to be in control all the time,” he says into Roger’s ear, as quietly as he can. “You gonna give it up for a little bit? Let me take you out of that pretty head?”

“Yes,” Roger breathes immediately, his thighs squeezing around John’s hips. “Yes, yes, please.”

John presses a chaste kiss to his cheek. “Hold on to me.”

Roger clings to him, his arms wrapped tightly around his neck, and John gets his hands beneath his thighs before lifting him carefully and carrying him over to the bed. He lets go with one hand to steady himself as he lowers Roger carefully down, pausing to reach for a familiar flask of oil on his bedside table.

“You still have this?” he asks, equal parts bemused and shocked.

Roger squirms, shivering as a breeze rolls through the open window. “It was in my pocket when I went to see you,” he explains. “I still had it when the Armada took me. It was one of the only things I had from home.”

John blinks at it. “Your beloved and treasured token from home, an oil flask,” he muses.

Roger kicks him lightly with a bare foot. “Yeah. Are you gonna use it, or just stand there staring at it?”

John rolls his eyes, shucking off the last of his clothes before climbing onto the bed and hovering over Roger’s body. Roger shivers slightly at the way their chests graze together, then shivers slightly harder. John kisses his cheek again and moves until he can pull the sheets up over them, and Roger sighs blissfully as they’re enveloped in warmth.

“Good?” John murmurs.

Roger nods, his eyes half-lidded. He squirms a little just to feel his skin brush against John’s own, sighing at the sensation, and John tuts as he works the flask open.

“Be good for me,” he says softly. “No touching yourself, no getting off. I want you to wait for me. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” Roger breathes.

He leans down to kiss him and Roger immediately sighs happily through his nose, arms tightening around John’s neck. He doesn’t seem to notice that John has repositioned them so that he can straddle Roger’s thighs, or if he does he doesn’t say anything about it.

John licks into his mouth, swallowing Roger’s moan even as he blindly tips some of the oil onto his own fingers and reaches behind himself, rubbing it over his hole before working two fingers quickly past his rim. He’s sure Roger would insist on doing this if he wasn’t distracted, and he’s not sure he can handle his teasing touches right now.

He stretches himself quickly, still slightly loose from that morning. When he pushes a third in he can’t help but let out a little moan against Roger’s lips, and Roger pulls away to look at him. He searches his eyes for only a moment before frowning.

“I could do that, you know.”

“Didn’t want you to have to,” John says, pecking the corner of his mouth and huffing as he twists his own fingers.

“’Have to’ is a strong term,” Roger chides.

John shakes his head and pulls his fingers out finally, reaching down to stroke the remaining oil over Roger’s cock. He kisses him again, keeping it slow and sweet this time. Roger sighs and settles his hands low on John’s hips, his right hand trailing dangerously close to John’s cock.

John bites him sharply on the lip before pulling away. “No touching,” he reminds him. “Hands above the sheets.”

Roger pouts at him. “How am I not supposed to touch you?”

John angles his cock, rubbing down on the head until it catches deliciously against his rim. He lets out a slow breath and sinks down on it, sighing blissfully at the stretch. It takes a long moment before he’s finally seated, his thighs twitching at the strain of holding still. He wipes his hand on the sheets before wrapping both hands around Roger’s wrists, pinning them to the mattress beside his head. “I’ll make it easy for you,” he says, dropping his voice until it’s just above a growl, and Roger takes a sharp breath.

He bites at the bruise he left on Roger’s neck while he waits, breathing through the initial burn until it settles into something warmer. Experimentally he rocks his hips and the feeling ignites, taking his breath away. He does it again and below him Roger gasps.

He wants to take it slow, to tease Roger until this is the only thing he can think about, but he hardly thinks he has a chance of it. It’s been years—literal, actual years—and all he wants to do is press the two of them so closely into one another that they can never be separated again.

He starts up an easy rhythm, fast and deep and hard, his thighs already burning with it. Roger moans as he tries to buck up into it, his eyes clouding rapidly.

“That good?” John breathes against his lips, and Roger nods. “I missed you so much. I missed this.”

“Deaky, _fuck_ ,” Roger moans. His hands clench into fists and then flex as he squirms. “Let me—”

“No. Not tonight.”

Roger moans again, head thrown back, the long line of his throat catching the lamplight, and John just has to duck his head and suck another mark there, right on the creamy expanse above his pulse point. Roger groans low in his chest when he does it, squirming in John’s grip but otherwise holding still.

He leans back again, taking Roger in, and the new angle has the head of his cock nudging right up against his prostate in the best way. He shuts his eyes at the feeling, head tipping back, distantly aware of the sheets falling from his shoulders and pooling over the curve of his ass. He hears Roger gasp.

“You’re beautiful,” Roger breathes.

He smiles hazily at the words, breath coming quicker as he chases his pace. Roger’s wrists twist in his grip, and he holds him tighter until he realizes what he’s trying to do and allows him to turn their hands over, interlocking their fingers.

Roger is watching him with glassy eyes, the blue overpowered by black. His lips are bruised and hanging open, the moisture on them catching the light, his skin flushed red and sweat beading on his forehead. He looks completely fucked out of it and the sight of him sends a curl of electricity through John’s stomach.

“Close?” he asks. He already knows the answer. He hasn’t forgotten the tension of Roger’s muscles and the way his breathing has gone a bit too quick and deep, not even after all this time.

Roger squirms, squeezing his hands. “I don’t want—can I touch you? I want you to—”

“Don’t worry about me,” John purrs. “This is about you, sweetheart. This is all about you.”

Roger squeezes his eyes shut.

“Let go, come on,” John murmurs, clenching around him. “Come on, baby. You feel so good. I love you so much.”

Roger gasps, eyes drifting open and heavy-lidded before he jerks, his cock pulsing against John’s walls as he fills him. John hums and rocks backward, working him through it. He finally lets go of Roger’s wrists to cradle his head, and Roger’s hands immediately bracket his own as he breathes hard, eyes drifting closed again.

John pecks his parted lips once, then again. Roger tries weakly to kiss him back, his lips tensing against his touch as he moans quietly.

“Good?” John whispers.

Roger nods, hazy blue eyes opening slowly. He turns his head to kiss John’s palm, his hand drifting down toward John’s cock. The warm roughness of his grip has John gasping and clenching around his softening cock, and Roger hisses between his teeth.

“Sorry,” John whispers, making to move, and Roger shakes his head sharply.

“Don’t,” he murmurs. “I like it. Fuck. I’ve been wanting to touch you since that fucking meeting.”

John squirms, fighting the urge to buck up into his grip. “I think your lieutenants,” he starts, then loses his train of thought at a twist of Roger’s wrists and tries valiantly to regather it, “I think they’d look down on you for— _shit—_ for fucking your newest recruit at the table.”

“They wouldn’t have to know,” Roger says, his eyes sharp. “You could just sit on my lap, just like this. I bet nobody would even know if you kept nice and quiet.”

His brain flatlines.

His vision goes black as he comes, collapsing downward into Roger’s space only to be caught by a pair of warm arms as he makes a mess of Roger’s chest. He can’t tell up from down for a long moment, and when he comes to it’s to the realization that his temporary blindness was really just his eyes squeezing shut in the safety of the crook of Roger’s neck, and that he’s drooling a little on Roger’s collarbone.

“Anyone ever tell you you have a filthy mind?” John asks him, voice rough.

Roger laughs. He can hear the sound where his ear is pressed against his skin. “You love it,” Roger teases. “Sure seemed to, anyway.”

John smacks him lightly on the shoulder, and Roger just laughs harder.

He settles against him as Roger’s laughter fades, settling his head against his shoulder. The lamp runs out of fuel finally, dimming before going dark, and the room is flooded with the blue-black tones of moonlight.

He stretches his toes out as far as they’ll go, the backs of his calves tinging. Roger grunts once next to him, and when John leans up onto his elbows it’s to find that his eyes are closed, blonde hair tangled across the pillow, a hand still lingering tiredly on the small of John’s back. John smiles and leans down to kiss his lips gently, and Roger just grunts again.

His eyes are drawn to the window, the moonlight playing on the waves. He can smell the saline from here, tangling with the smell of sex and the musk of Roger’s skin. All at once he’s drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

“No, don’t,” Roger whines under his breath, fingers trailing across John’s skin as John slips out from beneath his grasp.

“I’m not going far,” John chides. He pulls on a long shirt Roger had left in a heap on the floor, the sleeves falling well down his hands before he pushes them up.

He crosses the room silently, the rail of the balcony stopping him from completely leaving the dark, safe cocoon of their bedroom. He can hear Roger’s breathing behind him just like he can hear the sea below, and for a moment giddiness rises up in his chest at the luck of having two things he loves at the exact same time. He never thought he’d be granted this.

“What’re you doing?” Roger rasps from the direction of the bed.

John turns enough to send a smile his way. “Looking at the sea.”

Roger hums, rolling over. His skin is deep blue in the shadows of the moon, his eyes glittering just like the waves outside, and a sudden rush of love leaves John nearly blindsided. “You look like a spirit like that.”

“A spirit?” John asks.

“Mhmm. Some sort of sea nymph or something.”

“You’d know about that.”

Roger’s eyebrows climb upward. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

John sighs, turning back to the view outside. “Half the things you’ve seen are…Christ, Rog. I don’t even know how to comprehend it. Two years and it seems like you’ve lived three lifetimes.”

“You have, too,” Roger murmurs. “You can’t tell me you haven’t seen things. You can’t tell me you haven’t done things.”

He thinks of Stirling falling to his knees on the deck, his chest twisting. He sucks in a slow breath, the same pace as the waves outside, and then lets it out just as gradually. “I suppose I have, yeah,” he murmurs.

“Hey,” Roger says quietly. When he turns again it’s to see Roger climbing out of bed quickly, sliding up behind him to snare John into his arms. “None of that. It’s alright.”

John just shakes his head silently.

“You want to talk about it?”

John sighs and shakes his head again. He does; he should, even. He just doesn’t know quite how to bring it up.

Roger is silent for a long moment before kissing his cheek, hooking his chin over John’s shoulders to watch the waves. “You want to go down there?”

“What?” John asks, startled.

“Down to the water?” Roger is smiling now. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

“Now?”

“Yeah,” Roger nods. “Right now.”

“Someone will see.”

“Nobody’s out,” Roger chides. “Anyone who is won’t care. Did you seriously become a captain just to worry about what people think?”

John stares at him incredulously. Roger just wiggles his eyebrows, stepping away and crossing the room to throw John his jacket. John catches it and laughs. “You’re serious?”

“Sirius as the Dog Star,” Roger jokes, grinning when John laughs again. “Come on,” he repeats, dragging his breeches on quickly and his boots on over them.

John shakes his head, snagging a pair of Roger’s breeches off the floor and dragging them on. When Roger stands John steps closer, pulling his own jacket over Roger’s bare shoulders and leaning closer to kiss him sweetly.

“Blue looks good on you,” he murmurs, and Roger grins.

Roger takes his hand and together they rush out the door, stifling their laughter all the while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back welcome back!! Early update!! So glad to hear your guys' theories and what you're thinking about what's going on. It really makes my day <3 please let me know what you think about this one, I'd love to hear from you!


	5. Chapter 5

Roger won’t stop giggling hysterically, his voice purposefully low so as not to disturb anyone, and by the time they reach the great hall he’s panting hard.

“Come on,” Roger breathes into his ear, dragging him by the hand through the hall. His bare feet smack against the stone of the floor only to skid through the dirt outside.

And then they’re taking off toward the dock, speeding down the gangplank between _Queen Elizabeth_ and a shorter schooner, before finally reaching the end and slowing to a halt. Roger stretches his arms out sideways before laying down on his stomach, his arms folded beneath his chin on the very edge of the dock.

“Come on,” he says again, and John mirrors his position. The tide is high, the endless black of the water just inches below them, and when John reaches his fingers over the edge of the wood he has no trouble trailing them through the cool expanse of it. A wave of calm washes over him and he smiles.

“Good?” Roger asks, smiling at him over the cushion of his arms. “The water always calmed me down, too.”

John nods. “Yeah, it’s good. I’m glad, really. I think I’d have become a nervous wreck long before now otherwise.”

“Life on the high seas treating you that bad?”

“You could say that,” John says dryly, softening when Roger winces. “Don’t worry about it too much. It’s better now that you’re around. A _lot_ better. Believe me.”

Roger smiles softly, propping his head up sideways on his arms so he can look at him. “What had you in such a mood today, then? Don’t tell me it really was just because I wasn’t around.”

“You’re an egoist, you know that?” Roger blows him a kiss and he laughs softly. “No, it wasn’t that. I’m just frustrated, I guess.”

“Frustrated?”

“There’s too much I don’t understand.”

Roger purses his lips. “All you have to do is ask. I’ll tell you what I can.”

Of course he will; all Roger has ever done is help him. He almost balks at the thought of admitting his own lack of knowledge. He shouldn’t be afraid.

It’s just Roger.

“The red ship,” he murmurs, and Roger turns to face him. “Is it really a bad omen?”

Roger’s brow creases. “What brought this on?”

John shrugs. “Just a thought.”

“Have you seen it?”

He thinks about lying. He isn’t sure there’s a point. “The mind can play tricks on you when you’re at sea long enough,” he says hesitantly.

“But you don’t think yours was,” Roger finishes for him. “I know you. You wouldn’t be spooked about this if you thought it was a trick of the eye.”

He shrugs again. He hasn’t given much thought to the man he saw onboard his ship just prior to Sheffield’s attack. To be quite honest, he doesn’t want to. A ship out of the corner of his eyes he can explain. A full-blown hallucination is…something else altogether.

“Seeing it isn’t necessarily bad,” Roger says. “Having death following you doesn’t always mean what you might think. It can even mean you’re safeguarded against it.”

“Safeguarded against it?”

Roger shrugs. “Ocean magic isn’t clear-cut,” he says simply.

“So you think it’s real,” John says with a frown. “Davy Jones, too?”

“Sort of. That’s not really his name, though.”

“What, you’ve met him?” John asks, lips quirking up despite himself.

Roger’s gaze fixes on the horizon as he licks his lips slowly. Finally he smiles.

John reaches over to elbow him. “You lying git,” he chides.

“I’m not lying!” Roger squawks.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Okay, I might’ve met someone who reminded me of him once,” he starts.

“Reminded you of the ferryman of the damned?” John scoffs.

“Yeah, and that’s not all I’ve got, so shut up,” Roger laughs. “You meet a lot of weirdos out here, but nothing he said was what sold it. It was just something about him.”

John raises a quizzical eye. “Something about him,” he says slowly.

“Yeah. I don’t know. He was kind of—okay, full disclosure, we met in a pub and I spent the night—”

“You’re telling me you fucked the ferryman of the damned?!”

“God, just let me finish,” Roger moans, still trying to contain his laughter. “It wasn’t—I thought he was a complete weirdo, okay? He was dripping wet, for starters. More than anything though, he just seemed so horribly _sad._ ”

John stills, his smile fading slowly. “Sad,” he echoes.

“Yeah,” Roger says softly, his own laughter fading. “Crushed. Like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. He never once mentioned who he was. He didn’t even—I mean, he introduced himself as _Brian._ I suspected it. There was a red ship anchored in the harbor that night. I’ve seen that ship before. I know what it means.”

“This could just be your mind playing tricks on you.”

Roger shakes his head. “That wasn’t all, though. Through the entire night he never dried off.”

John frowns. “What?”

“He was always kind of sea-sprayed. Even when we were indoors, he was. That’s not normal.”

“You said ocean magic isn’t clear cut. He could’ve just been cursed or something,” he argues, then draws himself up short. Curses. Jesus.

“Maybe,” Roger sighs. “It’s just…I don’t know, John. I didn’t believe in any of that stuff two years ago—wouldn’t have believed in it. Being out here long enough, you start to see things.”

John nods. He thinks of his compass needle spinning around and around and around, thinks of voices echoing up from the water at the ship’s hull in the dead of night, thinks of seeing ships floating above the horizon. The easy day-to-day rhythm of Port Royal seems worlds away.

“I think I saw him,” John confides softly.

Roger’s expression grows serious. “Oh?”

John nods. “He came to me right before Sheffield boarded us. He told me I needed to become captain if I wanted to live.”

Roger frowns. “Well, mark me down as grateful, then,” he says slowly. “He was probably right.”

“Like he knows.”

“He’s practically a god, John.”

“Doesn’t seem like one.”

“What does he seem like?”

John shrugs. “Like you said. He just seems sad.”

“It’s a horrible curse to bear,” Roger says softly. “I don’t know if it just wore on him over time, or if it’s ocean madness talking. Maybe we all have it. You spend enough time out here and suddenly stories like the ferryman seem well within reach,” Roger continues. “Mermaids, sirens—I haven’t seen them, but I believe the people who claim they have. Even the Royal Navy hunting down the heart of the sea doesn’t seem so odd.”

“So you believe that they’re really going after it?” John asks. “Just like your father is?”

Roger shrugs. “They won’t find it.”

“How can you be so sure?” John asks softly, frowning. “If you believe that it’s really out there then who’s to say they won’t find it?”

“The heart of the sea cannot be found,” Roger says with a teasing smile. He splashes his fingers through the water. “You said it yourself.”

“That doesn’t mean I get it,” John says flatly.

“You don’t get it? How can you not? You know the stories.”

“Don’t tease me,” John says sternly.

Roger sends him a soft smile. “Sorry. You’ve known it all along, though. I thought you’d understand perfectly.”

“Lay it down then, if it’s so simple.”

“No need to get snippy,” Roger laughs, leaning forward to kiss the grimace off John’s mouth. John can’t hold back a smile when he does it, catching the happiness glittering through Roger’s eyes like light on the waves when he pulls away. He has to pull him closer to kiss him again, and then Roger is licking into his mouth, teasing and playful. John bites his lip as he pulls away, and Roger laughs again.

“You don’t know, do you?”

“Course I know,” Roger crows. “I’m the one who met the captain of the damned, aren’t I?”

“The one who slept with him,” John corrects. “How was he, by the way?”

Roger grins slowly. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” he says.

John rolls his eyes. Maybe he would. He thinks back to the mirage he’d seen on his ship. No, hallucination. No… “You’re trying to distract me.”

“Is it working?” Roger teases.

“Roger,” he warns.

Roger grins, laying his head down sideways against his folded arms so he can watch John with warm eyes. “Hear these words, for I have a story,” he starts.

John opens his mouth to reply when a bell begins clanging in the distance.

Around the town voices begin to raise as people wake up and shout to one another from their windows. A second bell begins ringing, this one coming from the direction of what looks like a church, and then a third one starts up on a nearby ship. Shutters open, light from the windows flooding the streets.

“Shit,” Roger mutters.

“What’s that?”

“The alarm. The Armada’s been spotted nearby.”

“Commander!” a voice calls from the direction of the fortress.

John bounces to his feet quickly, pulling Roger up after him and dragging him back toward land. “What does it mean?” he asks.

“It means we need to deploy.”

A wave of panic grips John’s chest. A few hours ago this seemed years away, like a bad dream. He never expected it to happen so soon.

“Commander,” a voice calls, and John recognizes Crystal standing at the edge of the dock. “Armada movement near the Berry Islands. It’s just the flagship. The full fleet is moving further north. They’ve split up.”

Roger purses his lips. “This is as good of a chance we have of getting Taylor alone, then.”

“And if it’s a trap?” John asks.

“It’s no trap,” Crystal replies. “We saw it with our own eyes. The fleet is peeling off. It’s possible that they think they’ll be able to flush us out and intercept us as we run.”

“How long?” Roger asks.

“If we leave now we should intercept the flagship within four days. The rest of the fleet can intercept the Armada as soon as that night. We’re scattered right now.”

Roger nods. “Send word to them. We’ll try to draw them out toward the Berry Islands. If all goes to plan, the flagship should be gone and the rest of the Armada should fall under our command by the time they arrive.”

Crystal nods, pulling a woman aside as she walks by and speaking rapidly to her in a low voice. The dock grows more crowded as various people run to and fro, scurrying up gangplanks with coiled lines and barrels of powder. John eyes his ship just as Ratty arrives, half out of breath and wearing his sleep shirt under his jacket.

“Sir,” Ratty says.

John nods to him. “Prepare the crew to make way.”

Roger turns quickly, shaking his head. “Not you,” he rushes.

John’s stomach plummets. His eyebrows shoot up. “Excuse me?”

“I said not you. You guys aren’t going.”

“You’ll be lost without us and you know it. We’ve got a hundred and six guns on our ship alone.”

“I don’t care. I’m not risking it.”

“It’s a bigger risk to keep them here,” Crystal offers quickly. “The Armada will notice movement in this area. They’ll come to investigate, and when they do _Queen Elizabeth_ will be a sitting duck.”

Roger frowns. “Then we’ll send you away,” he decides. “Sail for Barbados. You’ll be safe from harm there.”

“You’re fucking crazy if you think I’m leaving you again,” John mutters under his breath.

“And you’re crazy if you think I’m going to put you in harm’s way,” Roger replies firmly. “This is dangerous. They’re pirates.”

“As if I don’t have enough experience dealing with _pirates,_ ” John hisses. “Besides, you’ve said yourself that tag teams work better than single ships. Why on earth would I let you walk to your death?”

“It won’t be my death.”

“Like hell,” John snaps. “Like hell it won’t. What’s their flagship like, huh? You think you can take it alone?”

“That’s enough,” Roger says, his voice rising.

“Bullshit,” John says, stepping closer. “You don’t get to tell me that.”

“As your commander—”

“As your _partner,”_ John snaps pointedly. He’s distantly aware of a few heads turning their way, but he ignores it. “As your best fucking friend. You don’t get to decide what’s best for—”

“And you don’t know it yourself!” Roger shouts. “Fuck, John, I’m trying to save you!”

“And if you’re going to kill yourself in the process then I’m not interested!” John shouts right back.

The people around them have gone pointedly quiet. John doesn’t care. He can’t care about anything but Roger, not when Roger steps closer, his eyes glistening.

“I need to lead,” Roger says, so quietly John has to strain to hear it over the noise around them. “Do you understand? I owe something to these people, just like you owe something to your crew.”

“I don’t care,” John replies, eyes burning.

Roger just barely reaches forward to brush his fingers against John’s own. “Please,” he says softly. “Please do this for me. Okay? I need you to do this.”

John shakes his head lightly. “Rog,” he murmurs.

“Please, John.”

He takes a deep breath. Sea air and salt. Roger’s scent, his warmth just out of reach. He lets it out.

He nods.

Roger watches him, his eyes imploring.

“Okay,” John murmurs finally. “Okay. Alright. Ratty?”

“Sir,” Ratty says from beside them.

“Have the crew ready in ten. We’re sailing for Barbados.”

“Sir,” Ratty says again, rushing off.

Roger nods solemnly, finally looking away from John’s eyes only to catch sight of the people still gathered around them, pretending their hardest to be busy. “What the hell is the holdup?” he snaps, heading down the dock toward the fortress. “We’re preparing to go to war! Come on, move!”

Mooring lines are coiled and supplies are gathered as people rush down the dock. A cannon is rapidly hoisted aboard Roger’s vessel by a pulley, a few people straining against the line. John watches it go, half his crew tearing past him and heading up the ramp to _Queen Elizabeth._ He puts Roger out of his mind, even as every step of distance between them makes him more and more nervous.

This can’t be goodbye. Surely it can’t be.

“John,” Harris says, skidding to a stop by his side. “Barbados?” he asks under his breath. “They’re going into combat without us? That isn’t sitting well with the men.”

John presses his lips together briefly. “We’re under orders.”

“When have we ever cared about that? This isn’t right.”

“Listen, we’ll talk about this later,” John murmurs. “Just load up for now, alright?”

“Captain,” Crystal shouts from the other side of the dock, gesturing to a few crates. “Do you need powder?”

“Is it spare?”

He nods. “It’s yours if you want it.”

Harrison follows him wordlessly, helping him lift the first crate and haul it aboard as a handful of his men rush to get the rest. By the time he gets back to the dock it’s nearly empty.

“Cast off!” Crystal calls.

The mooring lines of Roger’s ship begin to fall away as the last few people climb the gangplank. Roger isn’t aboard yet, though—he can’t be. John would have seen him.

“John.”

He turns around and is immediately pulled into a kiss, Roger’s arm tight around his waist, his hand tilting his jaw closer. John’s knees go weak with it, his head spinning, and his eyes feel heavy when Roger pulls away.

Roger reaches down to scoop a bundle off the deck—John’s sword, his knife, his two pistols, Roger’s own greatcoat—and presses it into his arms.

“Good luck,” Roger breathes against his lips, lingering in his space for one long moment—one breath, two, drawn in in unison. Then he’s gone.

“Captain!” Harris calls from the rails of the ship. “Prepared to make way!”

The schooner peels away from the dock, her sails catching the moonlight. A favorable wind rolls through the harbor all at once, filling the canvas and sending the ship cutting gracefully through the water.

John nods, starting up the gangplank just as the last of the mooring lines fall away. He traces the familiar step across the deck, up the stairs to the quarterdeck and finally behind the stern, taking the familiar dry wood of the wheel in his hands.

“Drop canvas,” he calls. “Let’s move.”

The main sails fall, the creamy fabric billowing out only to be pulled in taught by the crew, the ship rocking as she pulls away from the dock. He sends one last glance to the fading lights of the town behind him. For some reason he has the sense they won’t be returning soon.

The ship easily leaves the lagoon, their speed picking up as the sails catch real marine wind. He turns the wheel gently to the left as they head in the opposite direction of Roger’s ship. He doesn’t like this. He knows he has to go along with it, at least for now, but he doesn’t like it.

He doesn’t really need to go along with it for all that much longer, anyway.

Ratty clears his throat behind him. “John,” he starts softly, “shall I go below deck and chart our course for Barbados?”

John shakes his head sharply. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“I know this is hard,” he says, his voice still gentle. “Just remember that we’re under orders. He wants what’s best for you, John. He knows that this is what needs to happen, for everyone’s safety.”

“He doesn’t know shit,” John mutters, “and we’re not going to Barbados.”

“What?”

“Harris,” John calls.

Harris starts from where he was hanging over the deck, watching the waves froth and churn below them. “What?”

“Will you take the helm?”

Harris steps forward wordlessly to take it from his grip.

John marches quickly down the stairs to the quarterdeck. The crew is just finishing cleaning up the neat knots on cleats, the sails trimmed to perfection and billowing out with wind. “Gather round, guys,” he calls.

The crew shuffle over.

“I heard there was unrest,” he calls. “I don’t blame you. _Queen Elizabeth_ is the power in these waters, and it’s idiotic not to put her in combat.” A general murmur of agreement passes through the crew, and he grimaces. “I’ve got a counter-proposal: we chase Roger’s ship to the rest of the fleet and provide what will probably be much-needed support against the Armada.”

“What’s in it for us?” someone calls.

Ratty rolls his eyes. “What’s in it for us is we save the lives of the only people in the Caribbean stupid enough to protect our mutineering asses, or did you forget that part? It sure as shit isn’t going to be the Navy.”

“If we end up split from The Cross we’ll be right back where we started,” John adds. “If they fall to the Armada, we’ll once again be without allies.”

The assembled crowd shuffles for a moment.

“We’re under orders,” the voice from before mutters.

“When have we ever followed orders?” someone responds from the back in the same tone.

“I can’t say there won’t be significant risk,” John says. “You all know that, obviously. Most of you have seen more combat than I have at this point. It just seems to me that this should be a fight we’re part of.”

Again, he’s met with a nervous silence. A few of the people in the front nod.

“All in favor…?” he asks hesitantly.

“Aye,” a unanimous call goes up.

Ratty grimaces. “Opposed?”

The deck is silent.

John’s mouth flattens. “Great,” he says, starting back across the quarterdeck. “To your stations. We’re bringing her about and setting a new course.”

From behind the helm Harris sends him a grin. “What’ll your boyfriend have to say about this, then?” he asks cheekily.

John winces. “Hopefully only good things, seeing as we’ll be dragging him out of trouble.”

The other ship’s sails have already disappeared behind the horizon line. They’re a good ways out, distance that _Queen Elizabeth_ will struggle to close in on with her greater weight and size. Despite that, he can’t help but feel that the wind at their back is a good sign.

“You really think they’re in trouble?” Harris asks quietly as he passes the wheel off to John.

Behind him he hears Ratty sigh, the sharp lead of his compass dragging audibly across the charts. “They were pretty gung-ho about going into combat at the meeting,” he says slowly, “but every bit of intelligence the navy has reflects that the Armada is well-equipped. It’s an army against a rebel group. That usually doesn’t end well.”

“We’ll see,” John murmurs. No doubt Roger stands a fighting chance, but if he’s going to _win_ he needs them.

The lagoon passes gradually on their right, the lights from the town invisible from this distance. It’s still shrouded in morning fog, the light barely outlining the hills.

John will point to that as the reason he doesn’t see it.

“Ship starboard!” someone shouts from the main deck.

He jumps, his head shooting quickly to their right. He sees nothing.

“Ship starboard!” the voice calls again, a few other people echoing it.

“Where is it?” Ratty asks.

John shakes his head. He can’t make out anything in the gloom.

“There,” Harris says quietly, his voice rising. “There! At the mouth of the lagoon!”

“Captain? Orders?” someone shouts from the quarterdeck.

He shakes his head, willing the ship to get closer. That’s when he sees the black flag flying the familiar white crest of the Armada. The front guns are aimed directly at them.

“Stations!” he shouts.

The ship is no match for them. It’s surely no match for them.

It can’t be.

“Ship port,” Ratty says weakly.

He turns, and sure enough a second ship is emerging from the fog just to their left, on course to run abreast of them.

“What do we do?” he asks Ratty quietly.

Ratty shakes his head. “I’m no strategist, but we can’t evade them. We don’t have the maneuverability. We need to fight our way out of it.”

“This ship is armed for open war,” Harris supplies. “We can take them.”

“You’re sure?” John asks faintly.

“Nobody’s sure about anything, but what other options do we have?” Ratty mutters. “We can’t go back into the lagoon. We can’t catch up with The Cross; not at this rate. We’re out of options.”

John huffs, rubbing his thumb against the salt-roughened wheel until the skin burns. “Gunners, hold,” he calls.

The ship to their left slices through the water, closer and closer and closer.

“Wait for it,” Ratty says quietly.

John shakes his head. “Call it,” he murmurs, and Ratty jogs down the stairs to the quarterdeck, his head ducking through the hatch to the gunner room.

Just when the ship is perpendicular to them, he hears Ratty give the order.

The first volley rocks the ship, and if not for his grip on the wheel he would have fallen. He knows they’ve been hit—can tell by the way the ship is dragging almost imperceptibly in the water. He prays it wasn’t below the waterline. It feels like it is.

He turns just in time to see their answering volley make contact, the ship’s wood splintering under the force of the shots as dust and smoke go flying. The ship speeds past them, waves falling off the bow.

“John, we won’t be able to get a clear shot like this,” Harris calls. “We don’t have the stern guns for it.”

“We won’t need to if we can outrun them,” Ratty supplies.

“We’re not outrunning them,” John calls. “There’s no way. We’re not built for that kind of speed.”

“Then what?”

He’s saved from answering by the first ship getting closer—close enough to raise the long nines at the bow and take a shot.

John doesn’t see it happen, but he knows the sound of a chain-shot when he hears it.

There isn’t time to say anything. There’s barely even time to watch. The cannon whizzes through the air and hits the main mast with a dull _thwack,_ the wood splintering as the mast falls, lines stretching and snapping as it leans sideways before falling heavily across the deck, the tips of the sails dragging in the water.

The ship lurches with the shot, momentum still maintaining their speed. John knows it won’t last for long. They can’t handle a chase with only two masts, not like this.

“We’ve been hit below the waterline!” Harris cries. “We’re taking on water!”

“Ge them abovedeck,” John calls to Ratty.

Ratty looks up at him. “The mast fell on the hatch.”

“Then find another way for them to get out!” John snaps. “They need to get out of there before they drown!”

A shot splinters the rail, sending pieces flying to and fro. Harris grunts as one shoots across his arm, leaving his sleeve bloodied. He stumbles backward and straight over the rail to the quarterdeck. John doesn’t hear him make a sound as he falls.

He runs to the rail, eyes searching the deck. He doesn’t have to look long; Harris is splayed against the wood below, his eyes closed, blood smeared behind his head.

“Ratty?” John calls.

There’s no answer.

And he should have been paying closer attention. He shouldn’t have left his post, really. With nothing to hold it, the wheel spins along with the drag of the mast in the water, turning them ever so gradually even as the two ships come about to make a second pass.

He never sees it happen. The boom swings over as they tack, the barest whisper of a shadow. He senses more than sees it coming, barely having time to turn before it makes contact with the back of his shoulder, sweeping him off his feet and over the side rail of the ship into the frothing green waves below.

The sea is cold. The waves are dark. The water tastes like tears on his lips.

He coughs once, and then chokes as another mouthful slips in. He grabs weakly at the wood beneath his fingers, slick and splintering. Another wave washes over and he gasps in smoke.

He’s dying.

The water brushes tears out of his eyes, gentle and smooth. The water is kind.

The water is going to kill him.

He opens his eyes one last time. What was once his beautiful ship is now a smoldering wreck. The fire is still blazing around him, the grand hull of _Queen Elizabeth_ now scattered in unidentifiable pieces floating in the water.

_If you wish for peace, prepare for war,_ he thinks to himself, and closes his eyes. He rests his head back on the wood, halfway submerged in saltwater.

And then a shadow falls across his face.

The creaking is what tells him he isn’t alone. He pries his eyes open again in time to see a ship drifting past him, close enough for him to touch. The masthead looms above, a massive, tooth-lined jaw, the fangs covered in barnacles and dripping with seaweed. The fine cherry hull is half-covered in black scum and rot.

He sighs deeply and closes his eyes again.

The sea rocks him even in sleep. It cradles him like a pair of arms. The rhythm of it is buried deep in his bones among sinew, among salt. The sea will never leave him.

The arms are warm.

The air is thick and humid with the smell of saline and beeswax.

He can hear water dripping nearby above the familiar deep creaking of a ship rocking on the waves. It underscores the gentle plucking of guitar strings, the sound distorted and watery as if in a dream and the melody heart-wrenchingly sad. Two people are talking, their voices low enough that John can’t make out their words.

But then the music cuts off with a twang as one of the voices rises. He recognizes it. Harris.

“So, what? You’re letting him walk into an ambush? Just like you let _us_ be ambushed?!”

“This is more complicated than you know,” someone replies, their voice low and soft.

“It’s already complicated enough for me,” Harris scoffs, falling silent for a moment. “You have to know he’s not safe. Surely you know that.”

“He’s safe. He’s protected. He _can’t_ come to harm when he’s at sea, do you understand?”

“Is that what…”

“Yeah.”

There’s silence once more, and John is drifting in the midst of it. The dripping of the water is a soothing rhythm, the guitar music falling back into the gaps.

“Relay our new destination to the crew,” the voice murmurs. “They know the heading.”

“Yes, captain,” Harris replies softly.

The scratch in his lungs turns rapidly unbearable and he rolls onto his side. He coughs—deep, bone-rattling heaves that only serve to remind him how close he’d come to drowning. His chest aches and he groans.

The strumming stops for good then, and a hand lands on his shoulder. “Hey,” a voice murmurs, smooth and sweet. “Get it out, come on. You’re alright.”

The coughing subsides finally and he collapses, wheezing faintly into the pillow. His mouth tastes like brine. The hand travels up to run soothing circles at the base of his skull and John sighs heavily. His eyelids feel like they’re being weighed down, but he manages to pry them open. His vision clears slowly, and when it does it’s to the sight of Harris hovering over the shoulder of a now-familiar figure.

“You’ve been following me,” John murmurs, his throat parched and aching.

The man shakes his head, the drops of seawater caught in his curls catching the light as they fall free. “Not because I wanted to.”

“Why?”

“Death is following you,” he says softly, his eyes sad. “I’m sorry. Wherever you go, tragedy follows.”

John lets his eyes drift shut again. He can’t make sense of it. He can’t make sense of any of it.

“John,” Harris says softly, “he doesn’t mean it like that. None of this is your fault.”

The man’s fingers rub at his scalp again. “It couldn’t have been prevented,” he says softly. “You need to know that. Men take their lives in their hands when they go to sea.”

“Where’s my ship?” John rasps.

The lack of an answer is all he needs to know.

He sinks further into the pillow, opening his eyes again. A cluster of mussels is clinging to his bedpost, barnacle-dotted and waterlogged. He watches as a hermit crab emerges from its shell slowly, scuttling down the bedpost and out of sight.

“You were just trying to help,” Harris says. “We all knew it. We were on board with it. What happened to the ship…I can’t say anything other than that it happened for the right reasons.”

“There’s no right reason,” John says swiftly. “Not for that. There’s success and there’s failure. That’s it.”

“You can’t think about it like that,” the man says, and when John meets his eyes it’s to see tears welling and obscuring the hazel in them. “You can’t think of it as a sum.”

“I don’t care,” John replies. “I can’t not.” He sits up, black dots blooming in front of his eyes as his blood rushes to his head. His lungs ache when he gasps.

“You shouldn’t move so soon.” The hand is on his arm now, his thumb rubbing mindless circles through the sleeve of his shirt— _Roger’s_ shirt.

Roger.

“Doesn’t matter. I have things to do,” John says, blinking hard against the shapes in his vision until they clear.

The man is watching him with sad eyes, his mouth flat. “You can’t.”

“I _need to._ ”

“You can’t.”

John huffs. “You’re Brian, aren’t you?” he asks flatly. “The one who thinks he’s a god of the sea.”

Brian balks. “I don’t know where you heard that.”

“Does the name Roger Taylor ring a bell?” John asks. “He told me. He told me he’d met you.”

“He told you.”

“He believed you, even. I don’t think I would believe it, if not for him.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t believe everything he tells you.”

“I always have,” John says. “He’s never given me reason not to.

Brian’s face changes, understanding dawning in his eyes. “He talked about you, you know,” he says quietly. “He didn’t say your name, but now it makes sense. It was you all along.”

“What did he say?”

“I could ask you the same,” Brian says. At John’s glower his face softens. “He said enough. He loves you. He didn’t say it, but it’s obvious.”

John stands quickly, his head spinning. He waits for it to pass before reaching for Roger’s jacket where it’s spread across the base of the mattress, nearly dried. “We have to go to him,” he says, shrugging it on over his shoulders.

“We can’t,” Brian says calmly.

“Why the fuck not?”

“This ship can’t interfere with matters of life or death.” Brian’s eyes water again. “If you believe anything he said, you’ll know that.”

“So you hauling me out of that bloody wreck was you minding your own business?” John snarls.

“You’re protected.”

“What about him?”

“He’s protected, too,” Brian says thinly. “It’s complicated, alright? He’ll be okay, though. There’s no need to go rushing to save him.”

“There’s every need in the world,” John snaps.

“We can’t just leave him,” Harris says. “It’s not right.”

“I’d remind you to respect your captain, sailor,” Brian tells him.

“Captain?” John snaps, shoving against Brian’s chest sharply. Brian stumbles backward a step, startled. “ _I’m_ his fucking captain, last I checked. He doesn’t answer to you. As long as I’m alive that’s _my_ crew.”

And Brian’s eyes drift away from him at that, his gaze going distant.

John frowns and turns to Harris, but Harris won’t look at him.

“You’re…you are, right?” John whispers.

Harris says nothing, and he feels suddenly sick.

“He’s part of my ship now, John,” Brian murmurs.

“You’d—but that’s not…” he trails off, his mind reeling.

“It wasn’t his choice,” Brian says softly. “You know that. It was time.”

And he swears he feels his heart stop.

“You’re protected,” Brian continues. “Not everyone is. The sea is—it’s not cruel, John, but it doesn’t always know what it’s—”

“No.”

“He’ll be okay. I’ll look after him—after everybody.”

“Everybody?”

Brian swallows wetly, and all at once John understands why his eyes are always so sad. “You’re the only one. The only survivor. Your officers—I’m sorry.”

“You’re—“ he presses the heels of his palms to his eyes until he sees sparks. “You’re _sorry._ ”

“I don’t choose when their time—”

“I don’t care. Give them back.”

“I can’t.”

“Bullshit you can’t! Give me my—”

“I _can’t_ , John!” Brian snaps, his eyes wet. “Don’t you think I’d have done that by now? I can’t. I have to help them reach the other side.”

“Then take me there and I’ll ferry them back out!”

“That’s not—I can’t go there! You can’t either, for that matter! It would take a—a god, practically, and even then it wouldn’t be easy.”

John huffs. “And the rest of The Cross? You won’t help them when they fall into an ambush later?”

“I—”

“The—Roger, you won’t help him? What, is it his time, too?” John steps closer to him, his face twisting. “You can’t have him. I don’t give a shit about the rules. I’m not letting you have him.”

“I’m not taking him,” Brian says.

“I thought you can’t decide—”

“I love him, too!” Brian snaps.

John falls silent, stunned.

“He’s protected,” Brian says, a little softer. “He’s protected, just like you are. He can’t die at sea.”

“What does that even mean?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t—”

“It doesn’t matter! It’ll all make sense when the time comes, I promise.”

“You can’t just say things like that.”

Brian takes a deep breath. “Hear these words, for I have a story.”

John rubs a hand over his face. “So help me god, Brian—”

“Once upon a time there was a fisherman’s son, and he fell in love with a god of the sea.”

“I already know this one.”

“But he fell in love a second time. He fell in love, and when he admitted it to his first lover the god told him he had fallen in love, too. When he asked him why, the god told him that that’s the sea’s nature—always changing, always flowing, always the counterpoint to death. Please, John,” he begs. “You have to know that you can’t take what isn’t freely given. You of all people have to understand that.”

“I don’t even know what you’re saying.”

“Loyalty cannot be ensured, only earned,” he says pleadingly. “The heart of the sea cannot be _found_.”

“I don’t…” He sits down heavily on the bed as a wave of dizziness overcomes him. “You’re not making any sense.”

Brian crouches in front of him. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he murmurs, cupping John’s face and studying his eyes. “This ship isn’t meant to host the living.”

“Is he going to die?” Harris pipes up.

Brian shakes his head. “Not if we don’t keep him here. We need to get him off this ship.”

“I’m not leaving,” John argues. He can feel fatigue tugging at his limbs even as he tries desperately to fight it off.

“If you stay here—”

“I’m not leaving,” he says more firmly, his eyelids dipping. He shakes his head sharply. “Not until we change our heading. We need to follow the fleet. Roger needs us.”

“Roger is protected.”

“I don’t know what that _means._ ”

Brian reaches for one of the chains around his neck. It’s heavy silver, tarnished with age and weather. The pendant is a heavy thing with a glass window, a black square resting inside. John barely gets a glance at it before Brian is thrusting it into Harris’ hands. “Give that to Lieutenant Dobson. Tell her we have a new heading. Go now.”

Harris nods and disappears.

“We need to save him,” John gets out, his voice weak as sleep tugs at him. He grasps at Brian’s wrist. “Brian, please.”

“He’ll be okay.”

“He _won’t._ ”

Brian catches the hand clenched in his sleeve, raising it to his lips and pressing a kiss to John’s knuckles. His necklaces dip forward, shimmering in the light. One sticks out to him, a thin piece of pale cord tied in criss crosses around a bright green orb of glass no bigger than a cherry. He catches it with his other hand, squeezing it until the cord digs into his skin. “Brian, please.”

Brian just traces his thumb over the back of John’s skin, his eyes pooling with tears. It’s the last thing John sees before his vision goes black, and vaguely he registers Brian lowering him gently back into bed before he’s swept away by sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally almost forgot to post this! I'm working on a vlogger au (which already has 1 of 3 chapters complete!) that I'm very excited about, and it's safe to say I got a little distracted...anyway, this has been a rather action-packed chapter but I'm pleased to say the next one will be very chill. So rest assured knowing our boy will get a nice break soon! As always, your comments mean the world to me and I'm so glad that you're all here for this ride <3 Let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

The wind is what wakes him.

It’s warm and salty the way only ocean wind is; it’s studded with sand, sweetened by sunlight, undercut by the rhythmic rushing of the waves.

A man is there.

His eyes are kohl-lined with a light hand. His lips are pink. His hair is soft and sea-tousled, and he feeds John with warm, salty fingers—slivers of young coconut, bits of charred fish and lemon-soaked crab meat, slices of deep orange papaya, the juice sticky and honey-sweet on his skin in a way that has John’s tongue lazily chasing after his fingers to lick up the drops. The man laughs lightly when he does, and the sound reminds John of the way gentler waves play against the bow of his ship.

His ship.

“Where am I?” he asks, his voice as rough as the sand in the wind.

The man smiles down at John. His head is cradled in the man’s lap, and a soft woven rug is stretched out between them and the beach. He presses his palm against John’s forehead, comforting and warm. “Don’t worry about that, darling,” he says gently. “You’re safe, and that’s all that matters.”

“I need to get back to my ship,” he rasps out.

The man trails his fingers up John’s jaw, over the dips and ridges of his cheek, until he can thread it through his hair. “Regain your health first, love. That’s all you need to be worried with right now.”

He wants to argue. There was something important happening—he was doing something. He can’t even remember now.

“Sleep, my dear. You’ll be alright. Sleep, and when you wake you can deal with it then.”

He can’t resist the weight of his eyelids and the soothing waves of calm following the movements of the fingers in his hair. Between one breath and the next, sleep drags him under.

When he wakes again it’s already nightfall.

The island is lit by candlelight and fire pits—and he can see it’s an island now, just a thin spit of sand backed with a dense forest—and a handful of huts and shacks line the beach, elevated on stilts to avoid the higher tides and harsher storms. There are people here, but they don’t come closer. They all act as if he isn’t even here.

The man from before appears in the doorway of the nearest shack. “You’re awake,” he calls.

John blinks, pushing himself up on shaky arms. “Am I?”

“I hope you’re feeling better.”

He frowns and rubs his head. Truth be told he feels like shit, and he says so.

The man smiles. “Come on, darling. I’ve drawn you a bath.”

It leaves no room for argument, and John finds that he doesn’t want to.

He follows the man up the ladder. There’s a wooden bathtub set out on the porch, the water steaming into the warm island air, thick with the smell of jasmine and verbena. The man looks away pointedly as John strips off his shirt and trousers before sinking into it, and it’s only then that he speaks.

“Mind if I stay?”

John shakes his head, and he settles beside the tub, arms folded on the side with his head propped on top. He dips a finger absently into the water and sends ripples moving gently in John’s direction.

“What’s your name?” John asks him softly.

The man smiles wryly. “I have a lot of names.”

Out in the tide, a woman is fishing with a spear. She jabs it lightning-fast into the water and when she pulls it out again a flounder is impaled on the end, the flopping of its tail sending water droplets flying through the moonlight.

“I’m dreaming,” he murmurs.

The man grins at that. “Are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll spare you the existentialism,” he says dryly. “You’re not.”

“I feel like I know you,” John says.

“You do, in an odd way. Not in the way you’d expect, certainly.” He picks up a cloth and holds it up for John to see. “May I?”

John nods absently. The man soaks it in the water before moving behind him, rubbing it across his shoulders and taking a layer of salt and grime with it. He begins humming, a melancholy melody that tickles the back of John’s mind. He feels himself relaxed; he is safe. He’s loved.

No. He doesn’t know this man.

Does he?

“Who are you?” he murmurs.

He feels a puff of air against his shoulder as the man laughs. “I’m everything and nothing, darling.”

“Please. Where are we?”

“We’re nowhere.”

“At least tell me your name.”

“I am called many things,” the man replies lowly, and John can hear how he’s trying not to laugh.

Despite himself he smiles. “Tell me what I can call you.”

“You can call me Freddie.” A hand ruffles his hair. “Yes, that’ll do. And your name is John. John Deacon.”

“How do you know that?”

“I told you I know you, didn’t I? Tell me, John. Tell me what brought you to sea.”

“I followed a friend,” John murmurs. “A lover. He was taken from me.”

“A lover,” Freddie repeats softly. “Who is he?”

“A mystery,” John mumbles, sinking further back into Freddie’s touch. “A boy of the sea, who was taken by the sea. The most beautiful boy. Angry, always angry, but about the right things. Kind when it counted, and too thoughtful for his own good. He reminds me of the ocean.”

“Do you love the ocean?”

“Of course,” John says, turning suddenly so he can meet Freddie’s eyes. “But what about you? Why are you here?”

Freddie smiles at him. “Your eyes are the same color as the sea, you know. Grey-green. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s really blue.”

“Freddie,” John chides.

“Fine. Alright. Hear these words, for I have a story. Once upon a time there was a fisherman’s son.”

“I already know this one,” John says, but again he can’t fight back his smile. “I asked for _your_ story.”

“I’m getting there! So impatient, I swear.”

“Alright, alright.”

“Where was I?”

“A fisherman’s son.”

“Ah, yes. A fisherman’s son. You know, he was gorgeous. Irresistible. One of those rare Earth beings that tastes like something else. Like starlight, maybe. Ozone, musk, the forest soil after rain. Long legs, gentle eyes, the kindest heart. The most beautiful creature.”

John raises his eyebrows. “I don’t think I’ve heard this version.”

“I thought not. Anyway, there was a fisherman’s son, and he fell in love with a sea—well, god isn’t really the right term. Oh, in your vernacular I suppose he’d be like a patron. Let’s call him the patron saint of the Caribbean, alright?”

“I thought it was the sea he fell in love with.”

“No, no. It was a boy.” Freddie smiles conspiratorially at him. “They met out on the waves, but they slipped away from the fisherman and took off to an island. They docked there for two weeks, and love is a drunken haze, my darling. Love sinks into you. It gives you tunnel vision and makes everything just that much more deliriously enticing. Two weeks they wasted away, and it felt like no time had passed at all.”

“Like Odysseus and Calypso,” John muses, thinking back to his childhood—Roger slowly reading Homer aloud to him to practice his reading, doing ridiculous voices for each character and making himself laugh.

“Yes, that’s one name for the two of them, isn’t it?” Freddie laughs. “Odysseus and Calypso. Although Odysseus, he escaped back to his wife in the end. When this man left his Calypso to go back to his betrothed onshore, the pull of his love was like a dagger in his heart. He was like a whale pierced with a harpoon, struggling to haul the weight of a ship by a bleeding wound.”

John frowns. “He was to be married.”

Freddie nods, splashing his fingers through the water thoughtfully. “He was. It was an arrangement set up between his and the girl’s parents when they were still children. He didn’t want it. And he didn’t know that his betrothed was a witch—a powerful one, too. She could tell from the minute he stepped foot on his homeland that his heart was no longer the same. His lips tasted like brine, and when she chased after them he would turn away. He so craved the touch of another that he no longer sought her own. He was horribly, horribly lovesick, and the starlight in him had been tainted by the darkest depths of the sea.”

“So she cursed him,” John finishes.

“She cursed him to sail the seas for eternity, with only a day on land for every ten years just so he doesn’t forget what was taken from him,” Freddie nods. “He’ll only be free once he understands fully the pain that comes from men going to sea. Only once he’s ruined himself by matching the sea’s cruelty will he once more be a man, and she expects him to come running back to land when it happens. He’ll truly be like Odysseus then—roaming the world with an oar in hand, looking for a land where it will no longer be recognized.”

“But it hasn’t happened yet.”

“It will. The sea is a cruel thing, darling,” Freddie says earnestly, and he looks suddenly apologetic. “Those who love it are already damned. I’m so, so sorry that you’re one of them.”

John’s frown deepens. Realization begins to dawn in his head. “He still loves the sea,” he says. “He’s so in love, Freddie.”

“I know, and I pity him.” His slender fingers reach up to toy with one of the many silver chains around his neck, tracing it until he reaches the round pendant at the end, the little black square inside spinning gently.

He knows, all at once. He knows in the way he the sea spray is sticking to his own lips, the way the water in the tub cradles him. “Calypso,” he breathes.

Freddie’s eyes snap to his suddenly, the warmth in them diminished so fast it takes John’s breath away.

“He loves you,” John murmurs. “He loves you madly. He waited for you and you never came.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You ran here to land, where he can’t follow. He’d do anything for you. He’s given up everything and you betrayed him.”

“I tried to set him free.”

“He’s in love with you.”

“He doesn’t know me,” Freddie snaps. “Neither do you, for that matter. The idiot who loves the sea is oblivious to the destruction it causes. Saltwater tastes like blood for a reason.”

“Because we’re borne of it. Because we can never be separated from it.”

“You don’t understand,” Freddie says again. “None of you ever will.”

“He will. He does. Of course he understands. It’s why he loves you. Hell, it’s why we all love you. You don’t need to be perfect.”

Freddie falls silent. The curve of his mouth is charming, almost petulant. John waits a long moment, but Freddie doesn’t speak.

“Brian said we’re protected,” John says quietly. “Me and Roger. You know Roger too, don’t you?”

Freddie’s face softens and he shrugs gently. “I do. Of course I do.”

“You met?”

“It’s a story for another day, maybe,” Freddie says. “We were watching over him.”

“To protect him?” John asks, frowning. “Why?”

“Not to protect him. Well, maybe Brian was. I don’t have that kind of power. I can barely even control the weather.” He licks his lips. “When someone loves the sea I can tell, and he always has. Ever since he was a boy he has, and you have, too. The old gods used to have their favorites, didn’t they? The ones who bring them the most offerings, who pray to them the most?”

John nods hesitantly.

“There are other ways to pray. There are other ways to make sacrifices—tears and sweat adding salt to the waves, calluses built from pulling lines tight, the ache in your heart for freedom when you find yourself landlocked. The old gods are all but dead and forgotten at their altars, but there will never come a time when humans don’t pray to the sea.”

“But why him?” John presses. “Why not just anyone?”

“Well, there’s the fact you and he are destined for—something. I don’t know. You’re worlds colliding, with infinite love trapped in the middle. Of course you’re going to change things. There’s the way you both love so completely and without restriction—without expecting change or anything in return. You love each other the same way you love your ship and your crew. That’s not it, though.”

“What is it, then?”

Freddie shrugs. “Why do you love him?”

“That’s different.”

“Is it? Why does anyone love anyone else? It’s not that complicated, John. I could wax poetic. I’m sure you could too, but if you take the whole story, pick out all the bits about legends and salt and death, you end up with something very simple.”

“Which is?”

Freddie’s fingers flick at the surface of the water. “Once upon a time two boys fell in love.”

John mulls it over for a long minute. The candlelight inside the hut dances against the linen curtains, the orange glow catching in Freddie’s hair. Out in the surf, the woman starts trekking slowly back to shore, dragging a sack of wriggling fish behind her. She pauses to pick a scuttling crab out of the sand.

Freddie washes his hair with a tin cup, shielding his eyes from the soap suds with one hand. He does it meticulously, murmuring about this and that all the while. By the time he offers him a dry towel the water is cooling and the stars have shifted noticeably in the sky.

“You must be tired,” Freddie murmurs.

John shakes his head even as a yawn sneaks up on him, and Freddie laughs. “I don’t know how,” John complains. “I’ve been doing nothing but sleeping.”

“You need to give your body time to heal,” Freddie says.

He leads John into the hut. It isn’t much; rough slats of wood make up the floor, salvaged from wrecks judging by the odd flecks of paint here and there. There’s a wash basin beneath the sink, next to a round table scattered with bits and bobs as well as a half a loaf of bread. Jars hang from the ceiling, most of them containing soil and small plants or candles, but John spots a few with sea water and tiny fish.

A doorway toward the back leads into what John can only assume is a small bedroom. Freddie nods toward it. “You can sleep in there,” he says with a small smile. “You should feel better in the morning.”

John frowns. “I don’t want to deprive you of a bed,” he says uncertainly.

Freddie just shakes his head gently. “Nonsense, darling,” he says quietly. “I don’t need much sleep. You need the rest much more than I do.”

John feels his frown deepen. He doesn’t like the idea of it, but he supposes there’s nothing to be done. “If you change your mind, please tell me,” he says.

“Don’t worry about it,” Freddie says with a wave of his hand. “Get some sleep.”

“Alright,” John says hesitantly. “Goodnight, Freddie.”

“Goodnight.”

He pushes aside the net-like material that makes up the curtain. The bedroom is small, barely big enough for the bed itself and a small table. It’s nothing fancy, just a small mattress covered with a pile of quilts, but nonetheless John’s eyes are closed before his head even hits the pillow.

He sees a man running down the beach, the pink soles of his feet kicking up wet sand in great clumps. He’s laughing so hard he’s having trouble running, his long legs practically tripping over themselves as he tries to catch his breath. He looks over his shoulder, curls half blowing across his face as he does, and sends John a dazzling grin as he yells something over his shoulder.

Brian.

John runs after him. The water is warm around his feet, beckoning him deeper, but he resists it. He doesn’t want to leave this place, not ever. He doesn’t want to return to the depths of the sea. All he needs is right here, on this beach. This moment is all he’ll ever need.

The sunlight is filtering through the slats of the hut’s walls when he opens his eyes again.

He blinks up at the ceiling for a long moment, but the usual grogginess lurking in the back of his head is absent. His lungs feel clear, the ache in them gone, and when he stretches experimentally even his muscles and abused joints feel well-rested. He feels good.

Freddie had left his clothes draped across the foot of the bed sometime during the night. They’re clean and dry. John reaches for the shirt he pilfered from Roger what feels like months ago. He rubs the soft, worn fabric between his fingers for a long moment, hesitating before resting it against his raised knees and burying his face there. It’s soft and comforting, but he thinks what miniscule touch of Roger he smells on the fabric is just his imagination.

He sighs, fighting back a wave of sadness before he works it over his head. He finishes dressing quickly before stepping through the curtain and into the main area of the hut.

The candles are no longer burning, the sun shining in through the open window along with the sound of gulls and the waves. He pauses, lingering as he watches the waves crash outside. He looks around the hut one last time. A jar hanging from the ceiling catches his eye and he spends a long moment studying the tiny coral inside, its tendrils swaying with some unknown current as a fish no bigger than his pinky nail circles it curiously, before starting and moving to the door. He needs to go find Freddie.

The beach is beautiful in the morning light, the surf an inviting shade of turquoise. The palms are swaying gently in the breeze, the tall grasses bowing softly. A small rowboat has been pulled up away from the water, resting between the clumps of grass. John frowns as he takes in the familiar reddish shine of its wood.

“He rowed you here yesterday,” a voice calls, and when he looks down it’s to see Freddie tending a small fire at the base of the hut’s ladder, a small pot hanging over it. He sends John a smile. “Tea?”

John smiles gratefully, climbing down. “Brian did?”

“Mhmm. Left us the longboat. I’m not sure why. ‘Just in case,’ he said. The Special is missing a dinghy.”

Freddie hands him a piece of toast slathered thickly with some sort of marmalade—mango, he thinks when he takes a bite. “How do you get tea all the way out here?” he asks after he swallows.

“This island is on a popular ship’s route,” Freddie tells him.

“You wouldn’t rather they leave you alone?”

“Well, they bring tea,” Freddie says, picking the pot out of the coals and doling the water out into mugs. “I hope earl grey is alright.”

“Perfect,” John murmurs gratefully. He sniffs at the steam, and his eyes practically roll back in his head. He’s been too long without a real cup of tea.

“Don’t get me wrong, most of them are insufferable,” Freddie says. He’s turning over a skewer of small, flat fish where they char over the coals. “That’s the nice thing about this island. Most people can’t seem to find it even if it’s right under their nose. The rumrunners don’t seem to have much of a problem, though it does help keep the worst of the navy away.”

“Not a fan of the navy, then?” John asks dryly, blowing delicately at his tea.

Freddie raises his eyebrows. “I’m sure I’m in good company, my little mutineer,” he says teasingly, and John lets out a surprised laugh, “but no. No, I imagine I wouldn’t do well to fall into their hands.”

“Who would, really?” John murmurs.

“It’s a little insulting, honestly,” Freddie says. He sobers quickly, though John can still see an ever-present hint of mirth in his eyes. “They only want me for leverage, you know. I think all they want any of us for is leverage.”

“Leverage?” John echoes with a frown, thinking back to the drawing in Stirling’s book.

“Mmh,” he hums, flipping his fish. “Me for whatever powers I can give them over the sea, which they seem to think are extensive. And then when that doesn’t work they’ll want me as leverage against Brian, I’d imagine.” At John’s baffled look he raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, they know about that.”

“What would they want with Brian?” John asks.

“What wouldn’t they want? An immortal army? That’s practically priceless. Think of the damage they could do if their sailors couldn’t drown.”

“But Brian can’t bring people back from the dead.”

“They haven’t figured that out yet,” Freddie says with a shockingly sunny smile. “They can’t even find him, not really. They’ll need to give him a reason to stop and talk to them.”

John blinks. “You,” he starts.

Freddie shrugs. “Or you, or Roger. They’re not picky. I think they’d prefer me. They’d have to fight an army to get to Roger, and they’d have to fight your father to get to you. So yeah, I’d rather the navy keep sailing right around this island. The rumrunners, however…”

John snorts, sipping at his tea. It’s perfectly creamy and sweet, and he sighs contentedly.

“Oh, let’s not talk about it,” Freddie says abruptly, his voice suddenly loud. “Fuck it, it’s—it’s horribly dark, isn’t it? We have much better things to be doing.”

“Like what?” John asks hesitantly.

Freddie bounces to his feet. “You have crab traps to check,” he announces.

John blinks. “Me?”

“Yes! You! I’m putting you to work, John. Come on and earn your keep!”

Throughout the course of the day John learns that Freddie is an odd one.

He delights in pulling the crabs out of the traps, though he refuses to drop them into the pot. He doesn’t really work much at all, actually—just directs John in what he wants done. If it’s not him then it’s the other people on the island who John still has yet to speak to.

“They’re naiads,” Freddie says in an undertone as the sun begins dipping toward the horizon, sending the sky into the range of pink-orange. “Ocean spirits. They like to keep to themselves.”

“Don’t take kindly to a human in their midst, do they?”

Freddie’s eyes trail none-too-subtly across the sopping wet fabric of John’s shirt. “I’m not sure why.”

He’s kind where it counts—kind to the creatures around him, kind toward John’s own sadnesses and ever sensitive to them, kind to the earth. He’s less than kind to himself, and it sends something inside John twitching to correct him.

He’s wild in the way he laughs. He’s wild in the way he talks.

As the sun sets on another day he points out various stars in the sky, murmuring their names and outlining constellations with the tips of his fingers. He and John pass a bottle of rum back and forth, the dark green glass rough with age, and it’s not enough to get him drunk but plenty to warm his chest and make the sky swirl slightly above him.

“Me and Brian went sailing once,” Freddie murmurs, rolling over on his side to face him. “We went north, as far north as you can go. The water was icy and dead-calm, and the stars were perfectly reflected there. You’d think you’d fallen straight into the sky itself.” He watches John with warm, bright eyes. “Beautiful,” he murmurs. “He cried when he saw it. He was so happy.”

John smiles softly. He can picture it, as sure as anything. He can picture the two of them in his head: Brian, gentle at heart but drowning in sorrow, and Freddie, his outward sweetness hiding an inner turbulence. They’re perfect for each other: perfectly matched, a custom-made set.

“Who was he?” John asks. “Back then, I mean. When you met.”

He watches Freddie take a long sip from the bottle, his throat bobbing as he swallows and thinks it over. “Kind,” he says finally. “Happy—not all the time but some of it. Now he’s…” he trails off, smiling sadly. “He was adventurous. He always wanted to explore, to try new things. He was a young soul. He’s not so different now,” he adds, turning to John again. “You’d think the things he’s done would change that about him. They haven’t, not really. He’s tired and angry, but underneath it all he’s still the same. I think he always will be. I hope so, anyway.”

John presses his lips together, turning and looking up at the sky. Something flicks by; maybe a comet, though he’d seen it too quickly to be sure.

Freddie stands up, the sand swishing softly under his feet as he walks toward the water. He wades in until it’s up to his calves, and the plankton around him lights up in gentle bioluminescence, shining the same soft blue as the stars.

They sleep beside each other. John hadn’t been willing to take Freddie’s place a second night in a row, and Freddie had grudgingly agreed to a compromise. They’re not quite as tangled up as John expects when he opens his eyes—and he’d expected the worst, given how he and Roger practically try to glue themselves together when they share a bed—but the warmth of him is nice all the same, and the presence of another body beside his own is comforting.

Freddie blinks into wakefulness slowly beside him. He smiles at him warmly, sleep still lingering in his brown eyes, and then rolls out of bed.

Thoughts of Roger linger in his mind all morning. It’s not just missing him and it’s not just worry. It’s a bone-deep ache, an awareness of an absence. It’s almost worse than it had been to lose him all those years ago. Back then he’d spent weeks in bed staring at the daylight peaking in through the cracks in his curtains, utterly unable to move, and then all at once he’d been hit with the urge to go—to chase him, hunt him down and bring him back home.

This is different. This is just pain.

It must show on his face that morning. Freddie watches him worriedly over their morning tea, watching him when he thinks John isn’t looking. It’s John who breaks first. He’s never done well with tense silences.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” John says silently as he looks at the last few sips of tea in his mug. “You’ve been more than generous. I appreciate it.”

“It’s no trouble,” Freddie says warily. “I’m helping a good friend.”

John grimaces. “Even so, I need to go back soon. I need to get back to Roger. I’m worried about him.”

“He won’t be any better off without you,” Freddie says. “With you around, he might even be worse.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing. He’s distracted around you, that’s all. I don’t mean it in a bad way,” he says quickly, then huffs. “Gods above. I’m putting my foot in my mouth. All I mean is, having you out of harm’s way isn’t a bad thing. You keep viewing it that way, but it’s just not true.”

John frowns. “Even so, I need to try to help him. I need to do what I can.”

“Even if it’s only going to make things worse?”

John pauses. “You think so too, then. You think everywhere I go tragedy follows.”

“Who said that?”

“Nobody needed to,” John says quietly, shrugging. “It’s just a fact, isn’t it?”

Freddie purses his lips as he studies him. “What happened to you,” he starts slowly, “it happened _to_ you, John. None of it was your fault.”

“Yeah, well. I certainly could’ve handled it better.”

Freddie shakes his head. “You did what you had to do. You did everything you could.”

“I didn’t do enough.” Freddie shakes his head, ready to argue, and John grimaces. “Drop it, Fred. Please. It’s not—it’s done, alright? There’s not much left for me to mess up.”

Freddie frowns, but he doesn’t speak.

He can’t stop thinking about it though; not now that it’s been brought up. He can’t stop thinking about his sunken ship and his slaughtered crew.

He can’t help but regret the part he’s played in all of this—the catalyst, the rebel.

“Do you regret coming to sea?” Freddie asks, as if reading his thoughts.

John shakes his head immediately. “Of course not.”

Freddie just watches the horizon, worrying his hands.

“Freddie, how could I ever regret something like that?” John says quietly, practically a whisper.

“It’s brought you nothing but pain,” Freddie replies softly. “You see now, don’t you?”

John shakes his head again, blinking at him. “It’s brought me everything.” When Freddie doesn’t look at him immediately he touches his arm, just the barest brush of fingertips over the fabric covering his forearm, and Freddie looks up, startled. “Freddie, it’s brought me _everything_ that I have.”

“Taken everything, too,” Freddie murmurs.

“No. Not everything. Not yet.”

Freddie sighs softly, studying him. “He’s alright,” he says softly. “For what it’s worth, he’s okay.”

“You can feel that?”

“I can feel enough. His blood hasn’t been spilled.”

John looks at him quickly and takes in the truth in his eyes. “Tell me,” he implores.

“You’re lucky he sent all his ships out the day before,” Freddie says. “Everyone was gone except for you and his schooner. It’s not the best battleship, but it’s quick and light. He outran the ambush, and he’s almost back with the rest of the fleet.”

John lets out a breath. “He’s alright,” he says quietly.

“Yeah. He’s alright.”

John closes his eyes in relief. For a long moment he allows himself to just breathe.

“He came here a few months after he’d joined the armada,” Freddie says. “There was a wreck, I think. It was before the mutiny.”

“He didn’t tell me,” John says.

“He probably didn’t have time,” Freddie replies. “He’ll tell you, once you’re together again. I’m sure he will. He probably won’t tell you that he talked about you for half the time, though.”

John looks up sharply. “Me?”

“Yeah,” Freddie says with a soft laugh. “I didn’t know it was you. It’s funny, isn’t it? I bet there are hundreds of people across the Caribbean who know you just from the stories he tells.”

“What did he say?”

“All sorts of things,” Freddie smiles. “Nothing lewd or crass. Gentle things, darling. How he missed the way his lover back home smelled. How he missed your voice. How he wished he could share the things he was seeing with you, and that you could experience them together. How he’d do just about anything to hold you close to him again, just for a second.”

John’s vision goes blurry. “I never stopped missing him after he was taken away. Not once.”

“He never stopped missing you. He loves you so, so much, John. I can feel it. He adores you.”

John huffs out a watery laugh, wiping quickly at his face. “I’m not sure how I measure up to—to a sea god and the captain of the damned.”

Freddie smiles at him, still gentle. “You have no idea,” he says. “None of that matters, does it? It boils down to us—to you and him. You’re his north star, darling, and you have no idea at all.”

The thought sticks with him all day.

It sticks with him while he sweeps sand out of the hut, while he mends one of Freddie’s fishing nets, while he watches clouds scuttle across the sky.

He’s standing on the beach, feet in the surf, when he sees white sails on the horizon.

He watches for a long moment, just to be sure. It’s not necessary. He already knows. He’d know those ships anywhere.

All at once he takes off, his feet pounding against the hard, ocean-wetted sand until it gives way to dry beach. He nearly stumbles but doesn’t slow, just keeps running until he meets the tree line and Freddie’s hut stands before him. He throws himself onto the ladder and climbs rapidly.

Freddie looks up from the washbasin. “Where’s the fire?” he asks, bemused.

“Ships,” John pants. “There’s ships on the horizon. Navy.”

“They won’t bother us,” Freddie says slowly.

John shakes his head. “There’s a lot of them. They’re headed west.”

Freddie frowns as the meaning sets in. “You—”

“They’re going to the Berry Islands. It’s half the damned fleet, Freddie. They’re heading toward Roger.”

Freddie’s frown deepens. He sets aside the brush he was using to scrub off a papaya, resting his hands against either side of the basin as he looks away.

John gapes. “You knew.”

“Of course I knew,” he says quietly. “I always know.”

“You did nothing.”

“He’ll be safe, John.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

John shakes his head sharply. He walks quickly into the back room, scooping up Roger’s coat, his sword and pistols, and his boots. “I have to go to him,” he says, settling on the edge of the bed to pull them on.

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“Will you stop me?”

Freddie huffs, stomping closer until he’s in the doorway. “How many times do I have to tell you? It won’t _help_ anything, John! Hell, the navy will just as soon kill you as—”

“They won’t kill me. You said it yourself. I’m the governor’s son. They wouldn’t.”

Freddie shakes his head sharply. “It isn’t safe. You know it isn’t. Walking into a battle zone—”

“I don’t see what other options I have,” he says.

“Brian will look after him.”

“Brian didn’t even look after my own damned ship!” John snaps. “Is that what you call helping? You’ll let him be blown to smithereens, you’ll let the entire Cross drown, you’ll let him lose the war only to offer him a piece of driftwood to cling to and call that saving him? It’s not enough!”

“Then what are you going to do?” Freddie asks. “Huh? What do you think you can do?”

“I don’t know,” John mutters. He pulls the buckle of his sword sheath tight before standing. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll make a deal with the navy if I have to.”

“What can you even offer them that they don’t have already?”

“Anything.”

Freddie balks, eyes wide. “Anything,” he echoes, his voice barely above a whisper.

John pauses. The meaning sinks in, and he rubs a hand over his face. “Not—not _anything,_ Freddie. I didn’t mean it like that. Not you.”

Freddie watches him sadly.

“I’d never,” he murmurs, swallowing hard. “I need to go to him, though. You have to understand that. I’m not like you. I can’t just be sure that he’s alright.”

“I know,” Freddie whispers, looking away.

“Will you stop me?”

Freddie shakes his head, his eyes fixed out the window.

“Freddie,” John murmurs, and waits until Freddie looks at him, “it’ll be alright. We’ll all be okay.” When Freddie still looks utterly unsure John hesitates, then ducks forward quickly and kisses his cheek. Freddie’s eyes flutter closed when he does. “Okay?” he whispers.

He watches Freddie swallow hard. His elegant fingers touch the pile of necklaces on his chest before tracing over the heavy silver pendant that matches Brian’s. He slips it off quickly, putting it over John’s head and tucking it beneath his shirt carefully. “Stay safe,” he says, his dark eyes serious. “Don’t make me worry for you.”

John nods. He holds his gaze for a long moment. When he begins wishing he could just stay here, blissfully unaware of the state of the world outside the island, he turns quickly and leaves the hut.

He runs down the beach toward the longboat, grabbing the bowline and dragging it through the sand and into the water. He jumps inside, grabbing the oars in his hands, and begins rowing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life updates! First off, I'm back on tumblr! I don't use it very often right now, but my url is sweetestsight and if you want to come talk to me there feel more than free! Second off, if you used to follow me on there you'll know that I've been ailing from a number of mysterious health issues for the last few years. I'm finally getting those addressed, which means the focus is coming back all of a sudden! I'm really excited about all that, because it's helping me remember things and do art good and all of those things, so. Just glad to be sharing the joy, really! 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading and following me through this wild thing <3 I can't believe we've already come so far. Please let me know what you think about this chapter. I love hearing from you!


	7. Chapter 7

He’d expected his welcome onto the _HMS Trident_ to be a little warmer.

He’d rowed out into the middle of the channel, his arms burning from the strain of pulling the oars. Out of breath, he’d turned around to see how close he was to the fleet sailing by. When he’d turned back, Freddie’s island had disappeared as if it was never there at all.

He’d climbed up the _Trident_ ’s aft ladder, his feet slipping slightly on the slippery wood, as a few crewmen had hauled the longboat aboard. By the time he was standing on the deck they were puzzling over it, tracing the barnacle-encrusted cherry wood and murmuring softly to one another.

The rest of the crew were slightly more focused. As soon as he was standing upright he found a handful of muskets pointed his way, the bayonets dangerously close to his neck. He held up his hands warily, raising his eyebrows.

“I’m no threat,” he’d said flatly. “At ease.”

One of the men jerked forward, his knuckles white around the musket. “As if you expect us to believe a man rowing around in the middle of the Caribbean is no threat,” he snapped. “Unarm yourself. Now.”

John rolls his eyes, but he unbuckles his sword and pistols quickly, letting them clatter against the deck. The man nods to his knife and he huffs as he pulls it out before dropping it, too. “I need to speak to your captain,” he starts.

“You don’t give the orders here. State your name.”

He rolled his eyes. “John Deacon.”

And that caused the men to balk. “John Deacon,” the bolder one echoed warily.

“Yes. Could I please—”

“You’re from Port Royal?”

He paused. “Yes.”

“The John Deacon who’s supposed to be sailing on _Queen Elizabeth_ as we speak?”

He nodded again, his patience slipping. “Yes. Listen, do you think it would be possible to speak to your captain?”

And that’s how he’s come to find himself in the broad stateroom at the stern of the ship, large bay windows ringing three of the walls and an elegant fresco of a world map spanning the fourth, while Captain Paul Prenter of the Royal Navy stares him down over a glass of brandy.

“I never thought I’d sit with such esteemed company, let alone in the middle of a military mission,” Prenter says.

John smiles weakly. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“Mmh.” He swirls his glass on the table. “Well, John—can I call you John?—you’ve caused quite the stir aboard this vessel, you know. The son of the governor, stationed on the flagship of the navy, gone missing along with his entire ship only to show up here, of all places.” He takes a slow sip of his drink, studying John all the while. “There’s a story here.”

“It was just my luck that you all were coming through this way, really,” John says carefully. “I never expected I’d run into a rescue so fast.”

“Lucky indeed. But tell me, how did you end up all the way out here?”

He licks his lips. He can’t give anything away—not about the mutiny and certainly about Roger—and he’s all too aware of how dangerous a slip-up would be. “Our captain had us off course,” he says, because that much is true. “He was determined to go south. I don’t know why. He sailed us straight into a storm. I think I was the only one to survive.”

“Pity, that,” Prenter says, though he doesn’t look particularly regretful. “How did you manage to survive such a thing?”

“I was floating on some driftwood until a merchant ship picked me up. They gave me new clothes and a longboat. It’s not much, but…”

“Mmh,” Prenter hums. He downs the rest of his glass before refilling it. “Well, you can consider yourself a very lucky man, John.”

“Thank you, sir,” John murmurs.

“Your family doesn’t know that you’re alive, you know,” Prenter continues. “They’ve been in mourning, actually.”

John swallows. “Oh?”

“Oh, yes,” Prenter nods. “They held a funeral for you. You’re technically just declared missing, but they gave up hope fairly quickly. I’ve heard that nobody’s seen your mother ever since the ship first strayed off-course, actually. Apparently she’s distraught with grief.”

A wave of guilt hits him. All this time he’d been ready to chase Roger to the end of the world, and he never once stopped to think about his family. He’s been a volatile shell of the son he once was for the last two years. Now they think he’s been lost entirely.

“Terrible thing with the ship, really. Absolutely terrible. We found some wreckage, you know.”

“I didn’t know that,” John murmurs. He barely hears Prenter’s words. He’s too busy thinking about his parents—his _sister,_ who he swore he’d always be there for. He can barely breathe around the knot in his throat.

“Well, with the ships on patrol looking for you all, it’s no wonder that we found something,” Prenter says. He takes a slow sip of his drink, eyes boring into John’s own all the while. “It must have been one hell of a storm to burn your ship into smithereens like that.”

John freezes.

“Shame, really,” Paul continues. “All those lives lost, for nothing. Say, John, I didn’t know that that area of the sea had much in the way of storms in the first place. In fact, I thought it was better known as a base of operations for a pirate faction called The Cross. Does any of that sound familiar to you?”

His mind goes blank. He can barely breathe.

“If that doesn’t, their leader might,” Paul continues, his voice now cold. “A childhood friend of yours, I think. How odd that your ship would sink just outside of his base of operations, mere hours after his fleet fled the area due to Armada interference. John, that sounds like one hell of a coincidence to me.”

John takes a deep breath, his voice coming weak. “If you’re implying—”

Prenter’s glass goes flying off the table as he backhands it hard, shattering into a million pieces against the wall. “I’m not implying anything, which you’re damn well aware of,” he says, his voice almost congenial. “I’m _telling_ you that you’re a liar and a traitor to your country, which I’m sure you already know. And since I’m in a generous mood, I’m also going to tell you that in my opinion it’s a good thing we’ve been keeping tabs on you for so long, because I know for fact that that merchant story is a load of shit. I know exactly where you’ve been.”

John shakes his head. “I wasn’t—”

“You’ve found the heart of the sea,” Paul says, his mouth stretching into a smug smile. “You didn’t just survive that wreck. You were saved from it. It wasn’t by Meddows—you’d still be with him if you were—and it wasn’t by a merchant. You’re favored.”

“Captain, that’s crazy,” he tries. “There’s no such thing.”

“Stirling knew it. High command knows it. Seeing as we’re sailing into battle with your former—oh, what was Meddows to you before he was dragged back into the cesspool where he came from? Your personal whore or something? I guess that’s the only thing pirate blood is really good for. Damned scum should know their place.”

“Watch it,” John snaps, fury rising in the back of his head.

“Ah, so he _does_ have pirate’s blood, then. That’s very helpful, John. We always knew his amnesia story was bullshit.”

And John could kick himself, he really could. He shouldn’t have opened his mouth. He never should have left the island. Maybe he never should have mutinied in the first place. Everything is slipping from his control so quickly, and he feels like he can do nothing to stop it. Despair rises in his throat like bile.

“Hey, Johnny,” Prenter says, “it’s alright. Don’t cry. You can keep him safe if you just do one little thing for us.”

John glares across the table at him. “I will _never—_ ”

“Never is a pretty strong word. No, you should think about it if you don’t want to see him walk to the gallows at dawn. Would you like that? Having to dress up in a fancy suit and stand with your family while he hangs from a rope in front of a crowd? Fat chance the sea goddess will have any luck saving him then.”

That’s it; the last bit of good he can do. He can still protect Freddie and Brian, even if it’s all he has left. “There’s no sea goddess,” he says, his voice choked. “There’s no heart of the sea. There’s no such thing. It’s not real.”

“Oh, but I think there is. I think you’re going to call her for us.”

“It’s a myth, Captain. It’s not _real.”_

“Call her and we’ll spare his life,” he says. “You can bring him home. You can live out the rest of your days in Port Royal together, surrounded by your family and friends. Isn’t that what you want?”

He thinks about it; thinks about moving back into the governor’s home on the hill, walking to the market every day and tugging Roger into secluded corners to steal kisses away from prying eyes. He thinks about reading books, going to class, watching ships unload supplies; thinks about buying a house with him someday, the two of them growing old and fat and grey together in the countryside, far away from the rush of the ocean.

And then he thinks about the way he feels when he looks at the sea—the way Roger looked while commanding his fleet—and he knows they never could. No; even if he were willing to betray Freddie, he could never want a future like that. Not anymore.

“I wish I could help you, but I can’t,” he says softly.

Paul’s face shutters, once again cold and harsh. “Fine,” he murmurs. “It doesn’t matter much to me. You’re still favored. There’s no question about that. Let’s see what lengths she’ll go to to save you, shall we?”

He stands, grabbing the brandy bottle in one hand and stepping around the table to grab at John with the other. John jerks back quickly, the chair overturning and clattering backward against the floor as he does, but Prenter is faster. He wrestles Johns arms behind him, twisting until the burn in his shoulders makes him gasp, and then drags him quickly toward the doors opening onto the balcony hanging off of the ship’s stern. He grunts when John struggles.

“You’ll make this worse if you squirm,” he snaps, pressing him hard enough against the balcony rail that his breath is punched out of him. “Don’t move.”

“Let me—” 

“Don’t _move,_ ” he says more firmly, wrestling one of John’s arms forward. He smashes the bottle against the rail, dragging the broken neck against his arm before John jerks away. It leaves a series of gashes against the top of his forearm all the same, blood welling up immediately and falling into the waves below.

John gasps as Prenter lets him go abruptly. He stumbles backward against the door frame, cradling his arm against his chest. Prenter just watches the sea eagerly as if waiting for something; when nothing happens he shakes his head.

“Pity. I thought that’d be more immediate.”

Behind them, the door bangs open as two crewmembers rush in. “We heard a scuffle,” one of them says. “Are you alright, sir?”

Prenter waves a hand in John’s direction. “Take this one to the brig. No food or water. Let him squirm a little. Perhaps he’ll prove his use once we draw nearer to The Cross.”

The man hesitates. “Sir, that’s…won’t the governor—”

“What the governor doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Paul snaps. “At this point I think it’s a mercy to let him believe his son died a good man rather than telling him he lived long enough to become a traitor. Don’t you?”

The man nods uncomfortably. “Sir,” he says, coming forward to shackle John’s hands. He at least binds them in front of his body, which John is grateful for.

They drag him to his feet easily before pushing him roughly out of the room. The last thing he sees before he walks out the door is Prenter, still staring into the sea as if waiting for something to happen.

The brig is freezing cold and dark.

There must be a leak somewhere, or maybe it’s that the crew of the ship simply doesn’t care about the state of the brig. There’s an inch or two of standing water on the floor, sloshing back and forth with each pitch and roll of the ship and wetting the leather of his boots. He does his best to keep Roger’s jacket out of it. The fabric no longer carries Roger’s scent, but the warm weight of it is comforting all the same.

With the sun having set, he’s no longer sure how long he’s been down here—most of the day and part of the night, though he doesn’t know how long that adds up to. He’d done his best to bandage his arm, struggling to tie a strip of his shirt around the wound with his teeth. It stings in a distant sort of way, but he can barely pay attention to it. His stomach is beginning to ache with the first pangs of hunger, and it’s becoming harder to ignore.

The lamp in the short corridor sways on the next wave, falling off its hook and shattering against the floor. The light is snuffed out and the brig is plunged into darkness.

The only illumination in the brig is the full moon shining through the portholes, watery and blue. The shackles in the next cell sway and clink against the walls. The water on the floor sloshes as it moves once again, back and forth and back and forth. The darkness shifts and breathes like the bottom of the sea, the tide rocking the whole world like a cradle. The water reminds him of the musical lilt of Freddie’s voice, the splashing happy and light like his laugh. If he closes his eyes he can imagine he’s back on the island.

The water sloshes lightly again, then splashes once. What little light he can see through his eyelids is suddenly blocked.

“Don’t scream.”

He doesn’t; he has no reason to. He senses him without opening his eyes, just like he always can. He does anyway, to take him in: Brian, the pallor of his skin blue in the light, the green overpowering the brown in his eyes, his face open and apologetic. It brings tears to his eyes just looking at him, and Brian reaches out instantly to take his hands.

“I can’t stay long,” Brian says, frustrated. “You’re getting closer, but we’re still pretty far away.”

“How’d you find me?” John rasps.

“Your blood,” Brian says, wincing as he traces his thumb feather-light against the makeshift bandage. “That, and the compass.”

“Compass?”

He tugs the heavy chain out from beneath his shirt, the pendant on it weathered but otherwise matching the one Freddie gave John. Frowning, John pulls his own out. The two squares inside spin uncertainly before aligning to point directly at one another.

“You shouldn’t have left Freddie,” Brian mutters.

“Like I had a choice. You shouldn’t have abandoned me there,” John replies, but he can’t manage to put any heat into it.

“I’d have come sooner,” Brian says, and for the first time since John’s met him he sounds bitter about it. “The fighting’s broken out. We’ve been busy.”

John swallows hard. He knows what that means. “Is Roger—”

“He’s okay, John. He’s fine.”

“The Cross?”

“Lost one ship this morning. They took out two of the Armada’s smaller scouting vessels, but they haven’t made a dent in the main fleet. He hasn’t heard about _Queen Elizabeth_ yet.”

John nods, closing his eyes. “Don’t tell him.” He feels Brian’s hand on his cheek, smooth and ice-cold, and he leans into the touch gratefully. “I’m going to try to get out of here. I have no idea how, but I’ll think of something.”

“I’ll be able to help more when you get closer. Once you’re nearer—”

“What happened to not being able to interfere?”

Brian’s jaw tightens. “I’m beginning to get really sick and tired of the rules,” he mutters mutinously, and John laughs deliriously.

“That’s our bad influence.”

“Maybe so.” He looks up at him, earnest and determined, and John’s heart leaps for a brief moment as Brian raises their still-clasped hands to his lips and brushes a kiss across John’s knuckles carefully. “We’re going to get you out of here,” he says lowly. “You’re going to be okay. Whatever they’re planning, it’s not going to happen.”

“How?”

His mouth tightens. “As soon as you reach us, the first chance you have I want you to take it. I’ll try to create a diversion for you, but you need to get off this ship.”

John nods numbly. He doesn’t know how he’s going to do it, and he almost can’t find it in himself to care.

“We’ll keep you safe,” Brian says, but his eyes are worried. “It’s gonna be alright.” John sighs and nods again, letting his eyes slip closed. Brian’s other hand weaves through his hair to cup the back of his neck, his forehead pressing against John’s own. “I’m so sorry, John. I’m so, so sorry.”

John shakes his head gently. He can hear the rhythm of Brian’s breathing this close, and he lets it wash over him like the cadence of the tide.

Brian’s lips brush against the corner of his mouth, cool and soft and comforting. He feels Brian release his hand, and a moment later he senses him disappear, leaving him alone in the darkened brig once more.

The air is stifling, the darkness of the ship daunting and unnatural. He tries to put it out of his mind—he tries to lean back on the bench and focus on the warmth of Roger’s jacket around him and the lingering tingle in the place where Brian kissed him. He tries to send his mind past the thick hull of the ship and straight into the sea outside, into the warm, comforting sway of the waves.

Uneasily, he drifts to sleep.

He dreams he’s in the sea itself, breathing the water into his lungs as easily as anything. The salt tastes familiar and soothing on his tongue.

 _That’s it, darling,_ Freddie whispers in his ear, speaking a language of tides and waves. _We’ve got you. You’re alright._

He sees Roger on Freddie’s beach. He sees him with his trousers rolled up past his knees, his shirt barely buttoned, his hair wind-tangled but for a thin braid laced with ribbon just behind his ear. It’s warm but windy, the gusts sending sea spray everywhere, the waves pounding the shore too roughly, but Roger is sifting the beach for clams anyway because Freddie had mentioned wanting them for dinner. And now he’s dirty and wet, shivering in the sun, empty handed and laughing like he hasn’t laughed in years. He sees him laughing, his legs splattered with wet sand. He sees him laughing so hard he cries.

He sees Brian on an island decades ago—perhaps centuries ago, perhaps millennia. It’s impossible to tell. He seems younger though, the darkness in his eyes replaced with warmth and a levity so severe it takes John’s breath away. He sees him dancing around a fire in endless circles, pinwheeling his arms as he skips and twirls; he sees him wince as he cuts open a papaya and nicks his own skin, sucking his cut thumb into his mouth; he sees him follow newly-hatched turtles down the sand in the moonlight, flapping his hands at a nearby hungry ibis until it flies away. He sees him first waking up and just about to go to sleep.

He sees the Caribbean in all its glory, vibrant and dangerous, playful but too rough, tossing ships asunder even as its creatures navigate storms and tides with the ease of ancient memory. He feels the waves like rows of yarn in a loom, rising and falling beneath his fingers. 

_You’re alright,_ Freddie says again, cradling him against the sea floor, and for a moment John believes it.

The morning sun splits through the brig. He looks down at the compass and sees it give an uncertain twirl.

The hatch bangs open, boots stomping down the stairs. A crew member enters and unlocks the cell with a sharp motion. “Time to go,” he grunts.

He makes a show of dragging him up the stairs. Maybe John would try to fight him if he felt better about his odds; maybe he’d do it on principle if he had any more energy to, but a day without food and water has left fatigue lingering in his bones. The sun is blinding when he finally reaches the top deck, storm clouds gathering rapidly on the horizon and blowing closer. He thinks back to Freddie’s words days ago— _I can barely control the weather—_ and smiles to himself.

The captain is waiting in the navigation room, a behemoth of a chamber with a massive map table in the middle. He looks John up and down with a glower.

“No communication from your friends then, I take it?” he says shortly. “Otherwise I doubt you’d still be here.”

“You’re mad if you believe any of this,” John tries. “Do you realize how crazy this sounds?”

“You can call me crazy if it doesn’t work,” Prenter says. “Otherwise I’ll take my chances.”

“It _is_ crazy,” John snaps. “You’re trying to blackmail the _ocean._ Do you realize that?”

“Maybe a few drops of blood wasn’t enough,” Prenter says loudly. “Would you rather we throw your tongue off the deck instead? Maybe that’ll get their attention.”

John snaps his mouth shut.

“That’s what I thought,” Prenter says mildly. “Now, I’m going to ask you this one last time. We need the heart of the sea in order to have our best chance against the threat of piracy—the biggest and greatest threat to our wellbeing as a people, which I’d hope you’re fully aware of,” he adds. “You have to know that nothing can be more valuable than that. There is nothing more important than the safety of your friends and family. So what will it be?”

He wants to tell him that there is more than one way to have a family—that Roger has been and always will be his family, and that he’d sooner die than betray Freddie and Brian like that. He knows it will just get him into more trouble, though. “The heart of the sea can’t be found,” he says calmly, “only earned. I can’t help you with this. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

“You have to know that that just cements our plan to use you as leverage,” Prenter says flatly. “Maybe we can’t find it, but at least we have you.”

“It’s not that simple,” he tries.

“Simplify it.”

“I can’t.”

“If you—”

“I _can’t._ Not in a way that’ll make sense.”

A ship appears in the windows behind the captain’s body, the hull a familiar shade of cherry. It turns, coming about and heading straight toward them.

“John,” Prenter says kindly, “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to threaten you. Do you really think we want that? Many of my men grew up in Port Royal. Do you really think they want to watch their former schoolmate and friend be tortured?”

“I’m not forcing your hand,” John says distractedly. Out of the corner of his eye, the ship is rapidly getting larger.

“You’re not making it easy for me. Listen, just explain to me how exactly you became one of the sea’s favored few, or whatever exactly it is that is going on here. You give me that information, and I might be more easily persuaded to pardon you.”

A man appears in the doorway. “Captain,” he says quickly, eyes darting to the ship outside the window.

Prenter huffs. “Not now.”

“But—”

“I said not now!”

He swallows nervously before disappearing through the doorway.

Prenter plasters his smile quickly back onto his face. “John, it’s alright. You and Meddows will go free. Hell, you’ll be welcomed back to Port Royal as heroes. I’m sure you miss your family, don’t you?”

The ship is so close now it’s practically looming. John can almost make out the people loading the long nines. “Should I start at the beginning, then?” he asks softly.

Prenter nods, his smile widening in satisfaction. “Please.”

John takes a deep breath. “Hear these words, for I have a story,” he says quietly. “All men have ever done is try to tame the sea. Once upon a time a kind man fell in love with a force of nature, at the mercy of its whims, and because of it the force of nature loved him back.”

Prenter frowns, studying John in confusion.

“How could it not?” John asks him, and the look of suspicion he’s met with makes him smile to himself. “How could it ever be loyal to someone who just wants to chain it down? The sea is not a lover. The sea is wild at heart, and we love it for that reason. The sea will never once be predictable enough to stand by you; the sea will take everything you love, and then chase you to the harbor and take it all over again.”

The ship is so close now that it’s slipping past the window, nearly side by side with them. He hears men yelling abovedeck, but Prenter seems either oblivious to it or uncaring.

“Take a force of nature and give it someone so immeasurably kind that not even tragedy can darken their heart or their love; give it someone so passionate that not even the weight of the world can put out their fire; because that’s what it is, isn’t it? Unyielding beings love each other on principle, for better or for worse.”

Prenter is staring at his mouth.

“I’ll tell you again,” John says, so quietly now that Prenter has to lean forward to hear him. “I’ll tell you one more time, just so you don’t forget. Once upon a time, two men fell in love. One, the sea, the bringer of life. And do you know who the other was?”

Prenter shakes his head, eyes wide.

He clenches the pendant in his hand before looking down at it. The square is spinning wildly, around and around and around.

“An omen of death,” he murmurs, and all hell breaks loose.

A cannon blows through the back of the ship, taking out the windows behind the captain. Prenter himself falls forward, John stepping back quickly only to rock on his own feet as the boat jerks under the volley of cannon fire. He hears wood splintering abovedeck.

The door bursts open as the first mate enters once more. “Captain!” he cries.

“Drop canvas!” Prenter barks. “Get us moving!”

The first mate runs back outside, leaving the door open behind himself.

John doesn’t even hesitate before running after him, watching the chaos unfolding abovedeck. The _Special_ is already peeling away, turning in a graceful arc for another pass. Prenter’s crew are quickly getting underway, and between the sailors still loading cannons and the other men wrestling the sails he goes practically unnoticed.

He quickly runs up the stairs to the quarterdeck, bracing his foot on one of the crates and climbing onto the wide oak siderail of the ship, gripping the shroud for balance. The sea is a frothing turquoise mass twenty feet below, the color somehow warm and welcoming.

“Hey!” he hears.

He turns around and the first mate is running toward him. Hearing the cry, a few other men run closer. “Do not let him leave the ship!” he hears Prenter call from the doorway to the navigation room.

He doesn’t look back again. He steps off the side rail, weightless for a brief moment before he’s plunging downward toward the water. He presses his feet together in the approximation of a pencil dive just seconds before making contact, plunging straight into the water and plummeting downward like a knife.

He cuts through the water, deeper and deeper, the sea getting rapidly darker around him. It presses in on his ribcage and his ears, making his eyes ache. Despite it, he can’t care. Giddy laughter bubbles up in his chest and he has to fight to keep it from escaping. Around him, bubbles are dancing and brushing against his skin, fizzing and tingling as he gets deeper, and he grins. He feels like he can sense Freddie all around him, relieved and happy, and the feeling is contagious.

He waits until his lungs start to burn before kicking strongly against the water, rising rapidly back to the light up above. He explodes through the surface, waves rising and falling around him, in time to see the _Trident’s_ stern as she sails away, the _Special_ in hot pursuit. When he turns it’s to see Sheffield’s ship approaching, a rope nearly hitting him in the face as it’s tossed down.

He grabs on, clinging for dear life as he’s hauled aboard. When his feet meet the deck he’s met with a small crowd of stupefied faces.

“Where’s the schooner?” he gets out.

It’s Veronica who steps forward, her eyes like saucers. “John?” she asks softly. “You’re supposed to be—where’s your ship? Why were you…”

“Double crossed us for the navy, is what he did,” someone mutters under their breath.

“Don’t be a jackass,” says another.

“You’re supposed to be in Barbados,” Veronica says, still in the same hushed tone.

“I know,” he replies. “I need to get onto Roger’s ship. Is he—”

“Commander on deck!” someone calls.

Spines snap to attention as the crowd parts. John doesn’t bother; as soon as he sees the top of his blond head he’s already rushing forward. Half a second later he’s wrapped in Roger’s arms, the gold fringe of his own jacket tickling his nose.

“John,” Roger whispers, then pulls back to look at him. His eyes fall on the bloodstained cloth around his forearm. “What happened? Why are you—”

“They got us as soon as we left. Brian left me with Freddie—Roger, they wanted me to turn him in. They said we’d go free.”

Roger frowns at him. “What?”

“To pardon us, to let us go home,” John rushes. “I didn’t. I couldn’t. I—he loves us. I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have a damned thing to be sorry about,” Roger says, his voice hushed but strong. He pulls John close to him again. “Not a damned thing.”

Sheffield clears his throat. “ _Queen Elizabeth,_ ” he starts. “Is she—”

“Gone,” John says, ignoring the gasps and murmurs around him. “The Armada got her and the entire crew. I was the only survivor.”

Roger shakes his head sharply. “We’re gonna put an end to this,” he mutters.

He’s not looking at John when he says it, though; he’s looking at Crystal, who sends him a solemn nod from where he’s leaning against the side rail across the deck. His eyes are sad, and it sends a twist of worry through John’s stomach.

“What are you doing?” John murmurs, frowning.

Roger just looks at him with bright eyes, a warm smile curling the corners of his mouth as he traces a thumb over John’s cheek. “I love you,” he whispers, his smile only growing, and it makes something in John’s chest turn ice-cold with dread. “I love you so fucking much, John Deacon. Don’t you ever forget that.”

“Roger, what are you doing?” he asks again.

Roger just ducks forward wordlessly and kisses him like a starving man, his hands trembling against John’s cheeks where he’s holding him close. Despite his worry John can’t help but sink into him as easily as he always does, matching him step-for-step as Roger licks into his mouth and exhales shakily against his cheek. When he finally pulls away it’s only by a hair’s breadth, and when John opens his eyes his entire world is sky-blue and earnest.

“I’m going to stop this,” Roger murmurs like a promise, taking John’s hands only to press a kiss to the knuckles of each one. “Everything’s going to be okay. It’s just a little parlay meeting. It shouldn’t last more than an hour.”

“The longboat is ready, Commander,” Veronica says softly, and Roger nods his thanks.

“Roger,” John starts, then realizes he doesn’t have anything to say.

Roger just grazes his hand across John’s hip lightly, flashing him a wink as he steps away. “It’s gonna be alright. I’ll see you in an hour, alright? We can talk then, about everything.”

Across the deck, Crystal purses his lips. He nods at a handful of other crewmembers, who release the longboat into the sea below.

Sheffield clears his throat. “Good luck, Commander.”

“Good luck,” Veronica echoes, and the crew murmurs the same sentiment.

Roger pauses, the cockiness fading from his eyes as he studies them all. Finally he nods once, solemn, before starting down the ladder.

John can only watch him go—can only watch as the longboat shrinks into the distance, the Armada looming on the other side of a handful of shoals.

Just as the longboat docks beside the Armada’s flagship the rain starts falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I don't know what the fuck I'm doing!! I wrote this earlier and drinks have since been involved, so I hope it's alright!! Please let me know what you think <3 <3 love you all!!


	8. Chapter 8

“What’s a parlay?” he murmurs.

Veronica is standing at his side, her blond hair tied back into an approximation of a sailor’s braid. A few strands have fallen free to blow in the wind. The once-distant storm clouds are growing rapidly, raising the breeze enough that the ship is rocking with the force of it, the waves crashing that much harder against the bow.

“Pirate’s truce,” Veronica says. “One crew meeting under peace with another.”

“He didn’t bring his crew,” John says, frowning.

She huffs softly. “No. No, he didn’t.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “He’s always done things differently.”

Movement out of the corner of his eye makes him start. He turns to see the _Special_ anchored on the edges of the battlefield, the sails folded neatly and the gaping maw of the figurehead just barely cresting the waves. It makes him uneasy to see it lingering there; no doubt the navy is feeling the same, if they weren’t already shaken enough by being fired upon by a ship that apparently couldn’t be touched.

He wonders at that; that Brian would be driven to fire on another vessel like that, and that he would do so with so little hesitation. It’s not like him, and it sends a twist of worry through John’s stomach.

Veronica follows his gaze, her mouth flattening when her eyes fall on the red ship. “You can see it too, then,” she murmurs.

He starts, turning to look at her.

“I thought I was imagining it or something,” she continues. “It’s a bad sign.”

“Not always,” John murmurs, thinking back to Roger’s words on the dock what feels like ages ago.

“I suppose not, no. Not when so many different ships are on the line. Maybe an omen of death will mean something good for a change.”

It’s John’s turn to grimace. He doesn’t think so, but he’s not about to say as much and crush what little optimism she might have. He turns and watches as the longboat is tied up beside Taylor’s flagship, the gold of Roger’s hair flashing in the sunlight, and feels his own nerves rise. His lips are still tingling where Roger kissed him; he can still feel the brush of Roger’s fingers against his hip. He tucks his hands in his pockets and tries to fight down his own anxiety.

His fingers meet something cold and hard, and he freezes.

“First time in two years that the Armada has agreed to a parlay with anyone,” Veronica muses. “This could go any way.”

His hand closes around the object in his pocket. He already knows what it is—can tell just from the way the cord is digging into his skin and the memory of Roger’s watery eyes as he winked at him—but he pulls it out anyway, opening his fingers and letting it sit in his palm.

The familiar glass ball glitters in the last remains of sunlight. The leather cord is still knotted where Roger must’ve slipped it off his head.

“John?” Veronica asks. “Is that—”

He shakes his head. He’s moving before he even thinks about it, running across the main deck and up the stairs until he reaches the helm. Distantly he’s aware of Veronica’s feet pounding after him, but he doesn’t slow even as he ducks around crewmembers and officers alike until he can skid to a stop in front of Crystal.

“We need to go get him,” he says quickly.

Crystal just frowns at him. “We can’t.”

“It’s a suicide mission. He’s going to die.”

“He knew what he was getting into, John. He’s going to be alright.”

John wordlessly holds the necklace aloft, and Crystal’s eyes widen as he recognizes it. “He left me this,” John snaps.

“That’s—”

“He chose John as his successor,” Veronica says, coming to a halt at John’s side. “His replacement for the Brethren Court. He wouldn’t have tried to give up his seat unless he was sure he wasn’t going to live.”

“Maybe he’s just trying to play it safe,” Crystal tries, but his voice sounds weak.

The flapping of canvas draws his attention, and he turns to see the Special dropping its sails and rapidly making way toward the Armada’s flagship.

“Shit,” Crystal mutters as the grim figurehead cuts through the waves. “Captain Sheffield, set a course to—”

“The Commander forbade it,” Sheffield says quickly, pulling out a telescope and training it on Taylor’s ship.

Crystal’s expression shutters. “What?” he asks flatly.

“He said we weren’t to follow for any reason.”

“I don’t give a shit. _I’m_ ordering you, as interim Commander in his stead.”

“He said not to listen to you. No interfering with the parlay. It was a direct order.”

John snatches the telescope from him, holding it to his own eye against Sheffield’s protests.

Roger is on deck. Roger is surrounded by what John can only assume is Taylor’s crew—and there’s Taylor now, strolling out from the Captain’s quarters, his grey-choked blonde hair and angry eyes a harsh echo of Roger’s own.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Crystal is snapping. “That’s the _Special_ closing in. He’s going to die.”

“I don’t—”

“Drop canvas!” Crystal shouts over him. “All hands! We’re getting our idiot back!”

“Belay that!” Sheffield says quickly.

John barely hears them. All he can do is watch as Roger frowns, his expression steely as he says something. Around him the crew reach for their swords.

“John,” Veronica murmurs lowly.

“He’s going to die,” Crystal hisses again, more to himself than anyone.

The deck falls silent, or maybe it’s John’s imagination. He doesn’t know. He can’t think about it. All he can do is watch as Taylor draws his arm back, the gesture almost lazy as he pulls a wide-barreled flintlock pistol from its holster.

It happens in the space of a breath. He raises it to Roger’s forehead. He pulls the trigger. Roger falls backward onto the deck.

The _Special’s_ torn sails block his view of what happens next—and he doesn’t want to see it, in all truthfulness. The telescope falls from his grip, the lens shattering as it makes contact with the deck, and all he can do is watch as the _Special_ swings around and fires on the Armada ship, smoke rising around it as the triple guns fire round after round.

He doesn’t know when he moved toward the rail, but suddenly he’s clinging to it for dear life as Veronica tries to pull him backward. His throat aches, his ears ringing, and he lets go only to stumble backward toward her.

Distantly he’s aware of Crystal yelling something, of Sheffield running to the helm and of people moving around him. He can feel Veronica’s hand on his shoulder, and then her arms around him as she leads him into the navigation room. He doesn’t feel any of it; can barely pay attention to it until she sits him down on the window seat, crouching so he can’t look away from her. It’s only then that he hears her.

“I need you to focus on breathing for me, okay? Can you breathe?”

He shakes his head; he can’t. He can’t even draw in a single breath, and all at once panic is clawing at his chest.

The sound of chains resonates through the ship as the gun ports are hauled open, and a moment later the cannon fire starts. He has no idea who they’re even shooting at, and he can’t find it in him to care.

“Just take a breath in for me. Come on. Please, John.”

“They killed him,” he gets out, barely above a wheeze. They killed him. _They killed him._

She’s in his space all at once, her hair soft against his nose and her hand rubbing an endless circle between his shoulder blades. “Breathe with me,” she says into his ear.

He can’t. He closes his eyes but all he sees is the same thing all over again; Roger falling backward, over and over and over. A panicked sound leaves him, something he can’t even identify, and his head spins faster and faster. He opens his eyes but his vision is tinted with black.

“John, come on,” Veronica says again, her tone pleading.

He can’t. The world is greying again and he gives into it, letting the panic and grief swell and consume him as his eyes drift shut once more.

He isn’t out for long.

The sun is lower in the sky. The cannon fire has faded away; it’s further away, though he can still hear it in the distance.

Crystal is in his space, shaking him gently awake, and it takes John one glorious moment to remember why the other man’s face looks so drawn; why his eyes are bloodshot and his mouth is turned down.

“How are you feeling?” Crystal asks him.

“How long was I out?”

“An hour or so.” When John doesn’t say anything or make any effort to acknowledge his words, Crystal licks his lips. “Listen, John. I wish I could give you the time to just take a break from this. I wish any of us could take a break from this, but we’re still in a war zone. We have to make a plan.”

John shakes his head shortly. “I’m staying here.” At Crystal’s startled look he almost laughs. “That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it? Giving me back to the navy?”

“We’re not going to give you to anyone,” Crystal says. “It’s your choice.”

“Did Roger tell you to give me back to them?”

Crystal’s expression grows even more grumpy, if it’s possible. “Of course it isn’t,” he grunts. “Don’t think so little of him.”

“It’s to his credit, if anything,” John mutters. He sits up, rubbing a hand over his face as he goes. His head is pounding, his body still weak from going without food, but the thought of eating anything makes his stomach turn. His eyes burn, itchy and dry, but it feels as though the tears are so constant that they’ll never stop. “Exchanging me for peace with the navy? It’s a good plan.”

“It’s a shit plan, and if you know him at all then you’d know that.” When John looks at him his eyes are wet, and a wave of guilt rises up in his throat. “To think that he’d have the ability to throw you around like that—of all people? Him? _You?_ Hell, John.”

John swallows. “Then you’re not…”

“No. I’m not suggesting that we give you back to the navy,” Crystal says quietly. “I’m not suggesting you do anything. Wherever you’re most comfortable is where you should be. We’ll look after you.”

“Why?” John murmurs.

Crystal shrugs. “It’s what he would have wanted us to do.”

His throat closes at that. He does his best to breathe through it, fighting back his own sobs. He looks out the window as a burst of cannon fire sounds from the distance. It’s not all-out war yet, the ships for the most part maintaining their lines, but the Cross ships are firing across the figurative no man’s land of the shoals as more of a warning than anything. The navy is still looming in the distance, the torches and lanterns beginning to glow as darkness falls.

“You know, he wouldn’t shut up about you,” Crystal rasps out, startling him. “I’m sure people have told you that before. It drove me mental in the beginning, but over time I got used to it. It was almost like you were there with us, just out of reach. The way he talked, you’d think you were just in the next room.”

“What’d he say?”

“All sorts of things. ‘He would like this, he would like that.’ Random things we never really needed to know, but you were always on his mind. I think it was about a week in that I just turned to him and said that if he missed you so much maybe he should go back to you and shut up about it. He just started crying. I don’t think he thought he was ever going to see you again.”

John wraps his arms around his knees, Roger’s coat settling heavily around him like a blanket. Crystal’s eyes are wet again, and in that moment he knows what Crystal is thinking—they’re _not_ going to see him again; none of them are.

Or maybe that’s not true; the scratches on his arm tingle as an idea forms in his head.

“He loved you so much,” Crystal murmurs. “Everybody knew it, even if they don’t know that it was you all along. So yeah, of course if you want to stay we’ll take care of you; of course we will. Don’t push yourself.”

He thinks about it. He could spend the rest of his days in the Isla de los Muertos, or even serving on a crew and travelling the seas. It’s not over for him; not really; not yet.

But not yet. Not now, when they’re still at war—when everything Roger built is under threat from the man who took his life.

“I’ll think about it,” he murmurs.

Crystal nods, standing. “Come find me when you need me,” he says, and then he’s gone.

John waits until the door closes completely before he gets to his feet. He shrugs off Roger’s coat before rolling up his sleeve and plucking at the bandage around his arm. He unwraps it gradually, the fabric falling away in his hands.

The cuts are healing nicely, neatly scabbed over even if they aren’t necessarily clean. He digs the nail of his opposite hand into one. When a bead of blood wells up beneath his fingers he leans out the window, shaking his arm carelessly until his blood falls into the sea below.

“You really don’t need to do that,” Brian mutters behind him.

John takes a slow breath of the marine air, the salt soothing on his scratched throat. “I wasn’t sure how else to get your attention,” he murmurs. The sun is setting finally, but it just looks ominous through the grey storm clouds lingering on the horizon.

Brian lets out a short sigh, his hands cool and as gentle as always on John’s shoulder as he turns him carefully around. He takes one look at John’s arm before walking quickly to a cabinet in the corner and digging through it.

“Where is he, then?” John calls over to him.

Brian sighs again, frustrated. He opens another drawer before shutting it just as quickly. “I thought you’d just be calling me to chew me out,” he says softly.

“What’s the point of that?”

Another drawer slides open before he unearths a roll of gauze, grabbing it and walking quickly back to John. “What’s the point of anything?” Brian murmurs, wrapping John’s arm again with practiced, quick movements. “I told you I’d protect him. I told you not to worry about it.”

“I know.”

He ties the gauze off in a neat knot, his breath quickening. “I told you that he couldn’t come to harm and I thought I was right. I thought—I was a fucking idiot, John, thinking that we’re all completely invincible when—”

“Brian,” John murmurs. He turns his hand over until he can grasp Brian’s in his own. “Where is he?”

“I don’t have him,” Brian gets out, his voice ragged.

John feels his world freeze. “What?”

“Souls need ferries when they—when they’re _taken_ by sea, but he didn’t—I couldn’t— _Freddie_ couldn’t protect him. He didn’t die by sea. He got shot.” His lip trembles, his face twisting. “He got shot right in front of us and we couldn’t _do_ anything about it. I don’t have him. His soul is already wherever it was supposed to go. I wasn’t fast enough to do anything.”

The sea sloshes below them, sending the ship rocking on the waves. Thunder cracks above them, and whether Brian’s breath is coming heavily from rage or grief, John can’t tell.

All he can tell is that they need to do something.

“Brian,” he murmurs, and then traces his fingers over the side of his face the way Brian had done the night before in Prenter’s brig, what feels like a lifetime ago, and bloodshot hazel eyes meet his own. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“It was,” Brian argues, his voice cracking.

“No. It wasn’t you, and it wasn’t Freddie, and it wasn’t me. Okay? Roger—Roger was an idiot, but he was fighting for what he thought was right. He knew he was outside your protection. Of course he knew.”

Brian shakes his head mutinously, but he doesn’t say anything.

“This isn’t on you,” John murmurs. “He died by the hand of his own father. There’s no point blaming yourself when we have other things to do.”

Brian stills before taking a long, shuddering breath. He presses his head closer to John’s hand, sighing shakily as John traces the seawater and tears wetting his cheekbone. “What are you going to do?” he chokes out.

John licks his lips. “What I can do,” he mutters. “Whatever I can do to avenge him.”

Brian nods once, then again. His eyes turn hard even through his tears. He turns to kiss the inside of John’s wrist.

“What about you?” John murmurs.

Brian takes a breath, the sound shuddering in his chest. “Freddie’s gone,” he says, his voice strained. “I don’t know where he is, but I can’t feel him. He’s—we’ve lost the person we were supposed to protect, who was never supposed to die, and Freddie’s just—he’s _gone.”_

John traces his thumb over Brian’s cheek, but Brian’s eyes just flutter closed. It’s only a split second before they open once more, and when they do his gaze is hard and angry.

“I don’t care what happens,” he snaps. “I don’t care anymore. Wherever he is or—I just don’t care. I’m going to make every last one of them pay for what they did.”

And it hits John then, all at once; it hits him that he’s going to lose all three of them. Freddie is missing, and even if he weren’t he’s as hard to hold onto as a handful of seawater. Brian is on the verge of losing himself, and Roger has gone somewhere where no man can reach.

At the end of all of this, he, John, is going to be completely and utterly alone.

He can’t think about it now. He doesn’t want to, and he can’t afford to. All he can do is stare into Brian’s eyes and see his own unrestrained grief and rage reflected back. He leans up just far enough to press their lips together, chaste and delicate, and feels Brian’s eyelashes tickle his cheek as his eyes flutter shut.

“Then go,” he murmurs, and when he opens his eyes again Brian is gone.

He drags himself to the galley not long after, Spike watching him like a hawk as he finishes his bowl of stew and then doing his best to refill it once it’s empty. Veronica and Crystal aren’t much better, apparently determined to make good on their promise to look after him.

The rest of the crew give him a wide berth, and it’s just as well.

He isn’t up for sleeping after his impromptu nap earlier that day. He paces the deck instead, ignoring the worried glances thrown his way. Sometimes he cries, and he doesn’t really notice when he does; mostly he thinks.

He thinks back to his last days of his peaceful life in Port Royal, Roger bouncing between apprenticeships while John studied with his tutor during the day. It was double the work for Roger, who did his fair share of squinting at John’s homework in the afternoon; but then, he was always bright.

He’d read over John’s shoulder half the time, and read _to_ him the other half. He’d pilfered a handful of John’s schoolbooks, particularly the ones concerning politics and philosophy. John’s brand new copy of _The Republic_ had gone missing, only to mysteriously return to its place on his bookshelf battered and annotated; _The Clouds_ had followed it, and the small collection of Jane Austin that John had stolen from his sister had been regularly borrowed from by Roger in turn every summer.

His copy of _The Iliad_ had never been returned at all.

“Don’t you think it’s just tragically sad?” Roger had murmured to him one night, his head resting against John’s chest in the dark, his hair soft where John was repeatedly running his fingers through it.

John had grinned at the shadows of the canopy above them. “What? That you lost my own damned book? That I have to order another copy from Virginia of all places, since apparently the local library is bereft of all the classics? That—”

“No, you twat,” Roger muttered, and John wheezed out a laugh as Roger slapped his side. “I mean that—did you manage to finish it before it, uh. Went missing?”

“Fortunately,” John chided. “You know that it’s the one reason my tutor hasn’t murdered me, right?”

Roger was silent for a long moment, shifting restlessly against the silk sheets. John took the moment to crane his head and look down at him. The glow from the embers in the fireplace was catching on the edges of his cheekbones and the moonlight outside was doing the rest, the orange and blue caressing his face in equal measure. John took a deep breath, and the wave of love and affection rose with it. He loved him. He _loves_ him.

Roger turned suddenly, his fingers tapping out a staccato beat against John’s chest as he looked at him, his face drawn and serious. “Don’t you think it’s sad, then?” he murmured. “That Patroclus would leave him to go to battle like that, without even saying a word?”

“Worse to watch your lover waste away,” John murmured, “even if to have him do his job was to watch him risk his life, again and again. Besides, Patroclus did it—”

“I know _why_ he did it,” Roger cut in, almost petulant as he curled closer. “Achilles was such a knob. If he’d just done his fucking job—”

“Oh, don’t blame him,” John chided. “He lost everything in the end, didn’t he? His lover, his army, his own life…you can hardly be upset with him after all that. Not when Patroclus knew the risks in the first place.”

Roger just shook his head. “If it was me, I’d never have even let Patroclus get out of bed that morning.”

John raised his eyebrows, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “Yeah?”

Roger smacked him again. “I swear your head is permanently wedged in the gutter, you randy git,” he had laughed.

They’d wrestled briefly—just briefly, mostly because Roger gave into it a little too easily—and only moments later Roger was pinned under him, his eyes bright in the fading firelight and his breath coming quick through quirked pink lips. Once more the knowledge of his own love had blindsided John with a giddy force.

But the memory is cold now; it’s grown cold and grey with time, and the dredges of happiness still clinging to it only serve to bring tears to his eyes. He looks out across the dark sea at the torchlight of ships in the distance and for the first time he thinks back to Homer—to ten thousand ships sailing to war over one man’s feud, and to all the lovers and warriors who had died along the way.

For the first time he pities Helen, who had been tormented again and again until all she could wish for was that her lover’s corpse be returned to her when all was said and done.

Dawn comes clear and bright. It’s almost an offense; a slap in the face.

The cannon fire had started before first light, and John smiled grimly when he recognized the distinctive sound of the _Special’s_ triple guns. By the time the day had truly broken, multiple Armada ships were simply flaming wrecks; in the distance he could see the _Special_ patrolling the edges of their ranks, picking off one vessel after another.

“How long before he starts coming after us?” Crystal mutters at his side, Veronica working on a mug of tea next to him.

John shakes his head gently. “He won’t.”

“You willing to bet your life on it?”

“Trust me,” John replies. “It’s sunrise, though. They’re going to be on him in a matter of minutes. We should get moving.”

“Get moving?” Crystal repeats.

“Yeah. We need to give him some support.”

Crystal scoffs. “We’ll give him some support. It’s just not going to be us specifically. We’ve got plenty of capable ships in this fleet.”

“But not the flagship,” John says flatly.

“We need to preserve our strength,” Veronica supplies. “We can’t send the whole fleet in at once. That’s basic naval strategy, John.”

He knows that; of course he knows that. It doesn’t mean he has to like it. “Send me in on one of the other ships,” he tries.

“Please,” Crystal snorts. “Did you even get any sleep last night? You’re not up for it.”

“I want to fight.”

“Honestly, I don’t really care,” Crystal huffs. “We meant it when we said we’d look out for you. We’re keeping you safe right now, and for more reasons than one.”

He frowns, looking between the two of them. Neither of them meet his eyes; Veronica is too focused on her tea and Crystal is still staring out into the distance. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snaps.

Crystal rolls his eyes. “You’re Roger’s appointee, John,” he says as if it’s obvious. When John doesn’t immediately understand he reaches over and flicks the glass bead just barely visible from the open collar of John’s shirt. “You’re taking his place on the Brethren Court.”

“I don’t want to,” John says immediately, and Crystal snorts.

“Tough shit. It’s a lifelong position. You can’t just choose not to.”

“Then I’ll go down fighting and give it to someone else along the way.”

“John,” Crystal snaps, turning to him fully, “you’re doing no such thing. Are you listening to yourself? You think this is what he would’ve wanted?”

“Who cares what he wanted? He’s dead.” He feels his eyes prickle again, and he viciously pushes back against the feeling. “He died. What he wants doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Listen,” Crystal says, his jaw clenching. “I didn’t watch my best fucking friend die for this shit, alright? I don’t care what you want. I watched him work for peace for two years, and you don’t get to throw that away.”

“Crystal,” Veronica starts, but he shrugs her off.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he snaps. “You’re going to go below deck, you’re going to stay out of harm’s way, and when all this is said and done if the Brethren Court by some miracle wants to go against Taylor and call a peace meeting you’re going to go in there and you’re going to negotiate a truce. And in the meantime we’re going to keep you from dying like an _idiot,_ and we’re going to keep an eye on you until you have your head on straight, because right now you’re way the fuck out of line. He’s not here to tell you, so I’ll do it. You need to sort yourself out. Am I being clear?”

Veronica elbows Crystal out of the way, glaring at him harshly as she turns John gently away from him. It’s only then that he realizes he’s crying again, his breath hitching harshly in his chest, and he wipes numbly at his face. “You’re a real fucking piece of work sometimes, Crys,” she snaps over her shoulder.

“Someone had to say it,” he says flatly after her, though John still catches the tremor in his voice.

Ronnie just huffs, pulling John back toward the navigation room. There’s a pot of tea sitting out on the charts at the table, and she pours him a cup before pushing it into his hands. “Don’t listen to him,” she murmurs. “He means well, but…”

“He’s right,” John replies. “You know he’s right.”

“He could’ve said it better,” she says. “He doesn’t need to bring it up so harshly—doesn’t need to bring _him_ up so harshly.”

His breath just comes more roughly at that, and her shoulders sink. All at once she’s pulling him into a gentle hug, and all he can do is rest his head against her shoulder and try not to tremble too hard.

“You’re going to be alright,” she whispers. “Okay? This is all going to be okay. Screw what Crys said. You need to stay safe so that you can be here when things are good again.”

“Things aren’t going to be good again,” he mutters mutinously, even if he feels childish as he does so. It’s all he can think, though—he’s permanently stranded from home, his ship is gone and he’s stuck in a war he wants no part of. Only Roger—having Roger close to him once more, like how it used to be—had made it all worth it, but he hadn’t even had him back for a week before he’d lost him for good. There’s no way for things to get better. There’s simply no way.

“Wait and see,” Veronica whispers, rubbing a hand soothingly against his back. “Just wait.”

He’d like to say he spends the day productively, but it’s not true.

Veronica stays with him when she’s not attending to duties aboard the ship, and when she’s gone Spike is there instead to keep him supplied with hot tea and bits of food. He can see the Armada’s lines outside the window, and occasionally he catches a glimpse of the _Special_ , her hull gleaming brighter than usual in the sun and her sails only growing whiter as the day goes on. He wonders at it and then gives it up just as quickly. It doesn’t matter.

He thinks about summoning Brian a few times, but he never goes through with it. The _Special_ needs her captain, and judging from the way the navy is starting to break its ranks and send one ship at a time into the no-man’s-land currently occupied by pirate skirmishes, Brian’s only going to have more work cut out for him as the day progresses.

He finally surfaces as the sun is dipping below the horizon, the great fiery ball of it sending the sky ablaze in pinks and oranges as it reaches down and touches the sea. Veronica sends him a pleased look as he emerges back on deck, and Crystal bumps his elbow against John’s own as he passes him.

“Sorry for earlier,” he mutters. “I was—you know what I meant. I was just…you know. Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” John murmurs in response, fiddling with the bead of his necklace. “He was your friend. I get it.”

Crystal pats him once on the shoulder before jogging up the stairs to the aft deck.

John settles with his forearms on the rail, watching the skirmish in the distance, the sun setting behind the ships’ masts. Two navy ships are struggling to outmaneuver the _Special,_ her lighter armament allowing her an advantage in agility, as a heavily-damaged Cross ship circles the wreckage of an Armada vessel. A neat shot from the _Special_ ’s triple guns punch a hole clean through the bow of one of the naval vessels, the entire ship dipping as water floods the hull.

He turns to look as Spike comes to stand beside him and then relaxes again. Spike is opening and closing his telescope nervously, his eyes on the skirmish in the distance.

“The navy sent its flagship in,” Spike supplies, then at John’s confused look he amends himself. “I mean its _new_ flagship. Now that _Queen Elizabeth_ is…you know. Apparently the _Dauntless_ got a promotion.”

John lets out a tiny scoff, the closest thing he can manage to a laugh.

“You know it?” Spike asks.

“’S where I met Roger.”

“Ah,” Spike murmurs. He swallows nervously. “Well, the sun’s almost down so we’ll be pulling back pretty soon. No fighting in the dark, and all that.”

“How’s the fleet?”

“We took some heavy damage, but nothing sank. We’ve been lucky. It would be a different story if it wasn’t for our friend out there.”

“Our friend?”

He nods toward the _Special,_ a nervous look in his eye. “It sets everyone on edge, but at least it’s not coming after us. We’ve been lucky. Hell, it’s a pretty powerful thing to have an unsinkable vessel on your side.”

John watches as the cherry hull flashes in the setting sun. Two navy shots go wide, the third barely managing to hit the stern. It’s not a great shot; the damage is cosmetic at best, but that’s what makes his eyes widen.

There’s _damage._

He stands up straighter, his eyes trained on the ship—the bright hull free of sea scum, the sails pristine white and clean from damage, the fog bank that seems to follow it inexplicably gone. He didn’t notice. Why didn’t he notice?

The sea is cruel because it takes lives without hesitation or mercy. The _Special_ had become the same way.

Spike takes a breath. “Was that…”

John nods. “I think so,” he breathes.

“Then the stories are true,” Spike murmurs. “The curse, everything—”

“None of that matters,” John says quickly. “Not now. If they can sink him he’s in trouble.”

Another ship breaks navy ranks, a lighter schooner that’s armed to the teeth and making its way quickly to the skirmish. The Cross ship turns slowly from the Armada wreck to let a few shots loose, hitting one of the navy ships head-on, but John can already tell it won’t be enough.

The last shard of the sun is barely hovering over the horizon. It’s nothing more than a speck, and then just as it disappears entirely a green flash rises up into the sky. A coolness enters the air as the wind changes direction, and John shivers. Harris’ words from all those days ago ring in his head as dusk descends, and he can’t help but wonder at them.

The _Special_ turns suddenly and sails straight for them, one navy ship sinking behind it while the other two linger, seemingly torn between whether they should give chase or not.

“Wanker,” Spike mutters. “He’s going to bring them right toward us.”

John frowns, shaking his head. Something isn’t right.

“Ship starboard,” Veronica calls, and he whips around.

At first he doesn’t quite understand what he’s seeing; a hulkingly large navy ship, her hull carrying three rows of guns on either side, the bright yellow and blue paint grimy and dark as if the entire ship had been caught on fire at some point, the once-creamy sails greying and tattered. The crowned figurehead is unerringly familiar.

Spike frowns. “That’s not what I think it is, is it?”

John shakes his head; it can’t be. There’s no way. “Can I borrow your spyglass?” he asks quietly.

Spike nods, wordlessly handing it over, and John raises it to his eye before scanning the ship quickly. And yes—there’s the familiar figurehead; there’s the distinctively-mismatched oil lamps; there’s the two masts that he’d last seen dragging in the water; there’s the door to the captain’s quarters and the grated hatch leading below deck.

There’s a familiar raven-haired man struggling to rapidly release all the sails at once. There’s a figure behind the helm, his proud posture and light hair easily distinguishable even from here as he expertly positions them to anchor alongside Sheffield’s ship. He flicks his head, his hair blowing away from his face and his blue eyes catching the light for just the briefest moment, and John’s heart stops.

“That isn’t possible,” Spike mutters.

The _Special_ crosses in front of their bow, lining up to form a flotilla on _Queen Elizabeth’_ s other side. John can only blink. He moves the telescope back toward the bow, the first figure filling the lens once more.

Freddie turns, looks directly at him and grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the angst, but look! It might be okay! They only need to fight the entire navy! Oh, and I guess they haven't killed Roger's dad yet, either. But there's hope, I swear! 
> 
> Thanks to all of you for sticking with me <3 it really means the world! Please let me know what you think--or yell at me for all the sadness, I don't know. I love to hear from you either way!


	9. Chapter 9

The _Special_ is a glorious thing in the dying light of dusk.

The hull, now completely free of scum and debris, is a warm, soft shade of maroon. The sails are creamy and pristine, the crew tying them up rapidly with soft ropes as the ship drifts slowly into position. The clang of chains fills the air as the anchors drop.

Mere seconds later _Queen Elizabeth_ drifts into the gap between the two other ships, the anchors lowering rapidly to aid in slowing her momentum. The ship is barely stopped before Brian’s crew is rapidly lowering a gangplank and rushing across onto the other ship.

“Come on, where’s the plank?” Crystal snaps. “Let’s go. Come _on_.”

John understands his impatience; with Roger so easily in reach, all he can do is fidget as the gangplank Is brought up. The wood clatters against _Queen Elizabeth’_ s hull, and then John is all but running across the deck to be the first across it.

His boots meet the familiar deck of his ship, the fine cedar and oak faintly charred now but almost more beautiful for it. He looks around, eyes flicking across the smooth, blackened siderails and the bit of charred wood on one of the bannisters, searching for Roger and Freddie all the while.

“John!”

He spins, heart skipping a beat at the sight of blond hair—and Harris isn’t who he was looking for but he’s a sight for sore eyes all the same, grinning as he bounds across the gangplank from the _Special._

“Can you believe it?” he crows. “Nobody can manage to stay dead around here, can they?”

And that’s when John fully takes in the healthy flush to his cheeks and the life in his eyes. “You mean—”

“Something about the curse breaking. I dunno. The captain knows more, I think,” he says, his smile just widening even more. “I’m just glad to be free. Do you have any idea how crowded that ship was getting?”

“Captain May is twice as happy, you know,” Ratty says as he hops down from the gangplank and strolls over to them. He’s still got his navy reds on but he’s torn the sleeves off of his jacket, leaving it a frayed-edged vest. Judging by the attire of the rest of the crew it’s a look that’s beginning to catch on. “Although I don’t know about sticking around this hunk of junk. Looks in need of a good paint job, doesn’t it?”

“I kind of like it,” John says faintly, his head spinning as he looks between the two of them. The din of voices is rising around them as more and more people come aboard, his crew mixing with Roger’s.

“Woah,” Harris jokes, clapping his arm. “You okay? Come on, it’s alright. Who would command this charred piece of shit into battle if you’re out of commission?”

“Not sure it can even take a good battle.”

“Oh, if it can survive sailing through hell I’m sure it can take the Royal Navy, no problem.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t work on getting her seaworthy in the meantime,” Harris says, already surveying the damage. “We can spend the night at it, and…”

“Of course,” John says, allowing a small smile. “Yeah. That’d be brilliant. Ratty, can you—”

“You don’t even have to ask,” Ratty grins. “I’ve got it covered. Go find your boy.”

He huffs out an approximation of a laugh, turning toward the aftdeck and scanning it quickly. The helm is abandoned, Roger nowhere in sight—and even through the crowd of people he can’t spot him, nor can he see Freddie anywhere.

He glances around one more time before heading quickly toward the door leading to the captain’s quarters, opening it quickly and turning into the tiny hallway. There are limited places he could be on the ship, and if he isn’t in there then—

Just as he rounds the corner in the hall he smacks into someone. He stops short.

Roger is looking right back at him, his eyes large and surprised and his gaze so heavy John feels like he’s pinned under it. The feeling doesn’t linger for long; Roger licks his lips as if to speak, and the movement snaps John straight back into the moment.

The hallway is already almost too narrow for two people to walk side by side; he barely has to step forward before Roger is pressed against the smoke-tarnished wall, his chest warm where it’s pressed against John’s own and rising and falling as he breathes, unerringly alive and moving and _well_ , and John can’t help but bracket his hips with his hands and just feel him.

Roger’s hands find his cheeks, one finger tracing against the corner of his no doubt still-puffy eye, his mouth drawn and sad. “Deaky,” he whispers.

“You’re never doing that to me again,” John says to him. “Do you hear me?”

Roger’s eyes flick down to his mouth as if he’s watching his lips form the words.

“You don’t get to decide I can live without you, and that the world will be okay without you in it. We fucking need you.”

“I’m sorry,” Roger murmurs, and then his eyes are jumping back up to John’s own as he traces his cheek again. “I didn’t—I thought it would work. I didn’t think it through—didn’t know that you would—”

“Of course I—do you even understand how many people there are to miss you? You can’t just—”

“Okay,” Roger murmurs quickly. “Okay, okay.”

“Fucking asshole. You motherfucker.”

“I know, baby. Sweetheart,” he adds, and he leans forward and pecks John on the lips.

He probably just meant it as a punctuation to his point, but John doesn’t let him pull away. He chases his lips after the fact, kissing him hard and needy, and Roger clings to him just as hard and sighs through his nose as if being trapped between John and the wall is utter bliss, sucking on John’s tongue and easing the harshness of his movements and making John dizzy just by existing.

He doesn’t want to stop—he barely _can_ stop, but his lungs are burning. He rests his forehead against Roger’s, breathing in his air and the first real breath of oxygen he’s drawn in over a day, reveling in the tiny act of being allowed to hold him this close when he never thought he’d touch him again.

“Freddie told me everything that happened,” Roger murmurs. “I thought you were going to be safe when we sent you away. I’m so sorry.”

John shakes his head softly. It hardly matters now; not after everything. “Where’s Freddie?” he asks.

“Coming. He said he’d be back here soon enough.”

John loosens his hands on Roger’s hips just enough to let him slip away and finish their journey toward the captain’s quarters. John barely lets him make a step before reaching out and intwining their fingers. Roger just smiles at him when he does.

“I really am sorry, John,” he murmurs as they push into the captain’s quarters. The room looks different, the once-grand and imposing white shades of the walls now suitably darkened. Between that and the fire blazing in the fireplace the whole space feels a little warmer and homier, a far cry from the disturbing cold that had surrounded the room after Stirling’s death. Roger pauses in the middle of the room, turning to look at him. “I didn’t think it through. I’m so sorry for hurting you.”

John just looks at him, mouth pressed together.

“It’s all over your face,” Roger mutters. “I’m so sorry, baby. I just wanted to end it—to make sure everybody would be safe.”

“What happened?” John asks him softly.

Roger shrugs. “What you’d expect. He basically shot me the second he recognized me.”

“But you’re his son.”

“Yeah,” Roger murmurs. “His son who betrayed him and mutinied against one of his own ships. His son who he never really wanted in the first place. His—”

“Fuck him,” John growls. “I’ll kill him my damned self if I have to.”

Roger just sighs, his eyes going heavy again as he strokes his fingers against the soft hair at the nape of John’s neck.

They’re interrupted by the door creaking open, Freddie stepping through carefully. His eyes fall onto John and he smiles softly. “I hoped you’d be here,” he says, shuffling slightly as if he’s not sure whether he’s allowed to come further into the room.

Roger just extends a hand toward him, Freddie’s shoulders relaxing as he steps forward and intwines their fingers. And it’s sending that dizzy feeling through his head again, seeing the two of them together like this—thinking about all three of them existing in the same world, in reach of each other and more alive than ever because of it.

“Freddie,” John says, and Freddie’s eyes jump back to him as Roger pulls him closer into the two of them. “You got him back, didn’t you?” he asks. “You brought him back.”

Freddie’s smile slips as he glances at Roger, but Roger just gives him an encouraging look. “Fetched him from the locker,” Freddie murmurs. “It’s where all things end up going when they’re taken from here. It’s not much.”

“A beach,” Roger supplies. “Just one really long, foggy beach. You can’t see anything but the sand and the water.”

“That’s how it appears to mortal souls, sometimes,” Freddie muses. “The water is what’s important, though. Nothing can pass through that place except for sea and air. Sea happens to be my expertise. I walked until I found Roger, and then we walked together until we found your ship. We used her to get back out. Probably a story for another day.”

“Thank you,” John murmurs, his eyes traitorously welling up. He pulls Freddie closer, tucking his small frame into his chest and kissing his forehead; Roger steps back to make room, a sweet smile spreading across his lips as he watches the two of them. “For everything you’ve done for me—for both of us.”

“Don’t thank me,” Freddie replies. “I did it for love. You know that.”

John just sighs into his hair, one arm wrapped tightly around Freddie’s waist and the other still holding Roger’s hand. Roger presses closer, tucking himself into John’s other side and wrapping his arms around both of them.

It doesn’t last long enough; a shuffling noise in the hall has Freddie straightening suddenly, his eyes wide, and then a moment later the door swings open once more.

Everything in the room seems to freeze as Brian steps through.

He’s dry for the first time that John’s seen him, his hair fluffy, his curls hanging shiny and brilliant. His skin is healthily flushed, his lips pink, his eyes bright and no longer quite so sad—life _radiating_ from him, and John’s heart stops.

But Brian is completely still in the doorway, his eyes locked with Freddie’s.

“Was it him who you did it for?” Freddie says, breaking the silence.

“You’re not allowed to bring back souls,” Brian says quietly, his gaze unwavering. “We’ve both broken rules.”

Freddie scoffs out a laugh. “So this is it, then.”

“Of course it’s not—”

“I’m happy for you, Brimi. I really am.”

Now it’s Brian’s turn to scoff. “Oh, don’t give me—”

“I swear. I never wanted you to be cursed like this. I only ever wanted you to be happy.”

“And I only ever wanted _you._ ”

That shuts him up.

Roger’s hand that was previously resting on John’s hip slides around his waist as he shuffles closer to him. Brian steps forward, closing the door behind himself softly and pacing toward their little huddle, but Freddie doesn’t shrink from him; if anything he only stands taller, his shoulder brushing John’s chest, until he and Brian are practically toe to toe.

“Ten years,” Brian murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper. “I waited for you ten years just for a single day with you, and you weren’t there.”

“Brian,” Freddie starts.

“Not even a message. So I waited another ten, and you still didn’t come.”

“Brian, it’s—”

“And I loved you anyway. Do you know that, Freddie? I love you anyway. But your track record isn’t great these days, and when Roger—” his eyes flick up to Roger’s and John feels him stiffen in his arms at it, a tension that John knows all-too-well straightening his spine, “—I thought you’d abandoned us. I was losing my mind, John was a disaster waiting to happen, and you weren’t there.”

“I’d never leave you like that,” Freddie says quickly. “Of course I wouldn’t. As soon as it happened I set out to bring him back. You have to know that.”

“I know that now,” Brian murmurs. “And I—I was so upset back then, but you just blamed yourself for the whole bloody curse, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. How could I not?”

“Maybe because sailing the sea for the rest of eternity was never a curse in the first place,” Brian replies. “Not to me. Not if I had you. But I never really did. Did I?”

Freddie lets out a long breath, the sound catching in his throat. “You’ve always had my heart,” he whispers.

John almost feels bad for watching them, then. He almost feels guilty for seeing the way Brian leans forward until their foreheads are nudging together, for the way Freddie’s eyes flutter shut as if he’s in utter bliss. He looks to Roger instead; Roger who’s still standing next to him, pressed into John’s side and blinking at the others with an expression John can’t begin to quantify.

They settle not long after, Harris knocking on the door to leave them with bread and stew and a pitcher of wine. They start at the table and then move to the couch, and then the floor, Roger getting up now and then to stoke the fire.

John can’t help but notice how the four of them drift closer and closer all the while, and something about it makes his chest ache.

“What did you do on the island then, Fred?” Brian teases.

Freddie raises his eyebrows. “You’re hoping for stories of debauchery, aren’t you? Oh, we got absolutely trashed on rum and every night we waded out naked into the surf to—”

“Is that what you did when Rog came to visit, then?” John asks, grinning.

Roger winks at him. “Oh, baby, don’t you know.”

“Please,” Freddie chimes in. “Roger was passed out from almost drowning for the first three days. He could barely lift a finger.”

“And the rest of the two weeks?” Brian asks innocently.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Roger chides.

Brian just winks at him, and when John looks to Freddie he’s grinning.

“You have to be captain,” Roger whines. “Who else would do it?”

“I don’t know. Any of your first mates, maybe? Your own second in command?”

“But they chose you,” Roger huffs.

“Roger, you’ve already made him your representative at the Brethren Court,” Brian starts.

John crows victoriously. He’d nearly forgotten. He swiftly plucks the necklace off his own neck before depositing it over Roger’s head. Roger just glares at him flatly.

“Okay, he _was_ your representative,” Brian continues.

“That’s one less duty, then,” Roger reasons. “Will you _please_ consider being captain of the ship you were already captain of in the first place?”

John rolls his eyes. “I’ll consider it,” he says, but by the look on Roger’s face he already knows the answer.

“In all truthfulness, it wasn’t easy,” Freddie murmurs to him as an aside as Roger and Brian bicker loudly, a burst of laughter breaking through the air every few seconds. “I’m not sure of the exact details, but he well and truly thought he was dead. I spent the first week trying to convince him otherwise, and then the second week trying to convince him that his father wouldn’t finish the job the minute he next saw him.”

John glances at Roger—but he looks utterly alive now, the wine sending a flush up his cheeks and his eyes bright as he laughs at whatever Brian is saying.

“it’s in the past though, isn’t it?” Freddie murmurs with a small smile. “None of it really matters anymore. Not really. That was practically years ago.”

John turns to him, the dark warmth of Freddie’s eyes swallowing him whole, and smiles. “Thank you, anyway. Thank you for looking out for him.”

“You don’t have to thank me for something like that.”

“My dad’s a fisherman,” Brian murmurs, the light from the fire playing across his face. “Or he was, anyway. That much is true.”

John runs his fingers through Roger’s hair thoughtfully. The four of them are sprawled on the floor, Brian only barely propped up against the footboard of the bed and the others piled in various positions around them. Judging from the way Freddie is breathing he’s dozing off, or nearly there.

“I don’t really know what else they say, but I’m guessing most of it isn’t quite accurate,” he continues. “Me and Freddie were going to run away together, but we didn’t make it that far. My dad found me a job as an apprentice shipbuilder. I was supposed to get married. I wasn’t supposed to leave the colony again. In the end I just couldn’t do it.”

“So you ran away,” John finishes for him.

Roger shifts, his hair tickling the top of John’s chest, and lets out a long sigh.

“I wasn’t going to leave without telling them,” Brian says. “I was going to leave a note. And I had to tell her that I was leaving. I couldn’t just abandon her.”

“Your betrothed?”

He nods, then huffs out a little laugh. “She didn’t curse me,” he says. “You know that? She didn’t, really. To sail the seas forever and be with the one I love…I don’t know if she meant it to be a curse. The more I think about it, the more I don’t think she meant it that way at all.”

“What happened?” John asks.

Brian shrugs softly, moving to stroke over Freddie’s shoulder when the other man grumbles at the jostling. “She just explained it to me. She told me that if I wanted to go so badly, I needed to go right that instant, so I did. It was the ship I was working on that she’d tied to the curse. The _Special,_ ” he clarifies, sending John a soft smile. “We’d just finished building her the day before. Beautiful thing.”

“Were you upset?”

He shakes his head. “Not really. I missed my family, obviously. My friends—I knew I’d never see most of those people ever again. By the time a decade had passed most of them had moved on to other places, and over time it was just less painful to stop looking, for both them and for Freddie. And that’s when I met Roger.”

“Come on, John,” a voice murmurs in his ear. “You can’t sleep on the floor. Come on.”

He tries to offer a counter-argument, but all that comes out is a vague grumble. Warm hands help him to his feet and the next thing he knows he’s being settled down into the sheets. Something tickles his nose, and he recognizes Roger’s hair just by the smell.

“Stay,” he manages to murmur, his fingers turning to close around a wrist.

Someone huffs out a laugh—Freddie, he thinks. “Grabby,” Freddie laughs.

“Stay,” he repeats, cracking open his eyes enough to see Freddie hovering uncertainly by his side.

Freddie sighs, a smile quirking his lips. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay, darling.”

He sleeps more deeply than he has in weeks. Roger runs around him in endless circles in his dreams, water rushing below his feet and the sky an endless blue above. When he looks up into it he realizes that the blue of it is the ocean itself, ships moving to and fro far below him and stars dancing around his feet.

Roger is laying on a blanket, raising his palm to the sky and measuring the distance between stars with his fingers. Roger is laying in a hammock; Roger is laying on the beach; Roger is laying on a couch.

Roger is laying on his chest.

He’s resting his chin against his own hand, using the extra height to watch the sea move outside of John’s window in the governor’s mansion. The breeze is rolling in honey-thick and just as sweet, the way it always does in stifling Caribbean summers. They’re stripped down to breeches and open cotton shirts, but even then the heat is cloying. John feels his brain melting just laying there.

For a long moment Roger watches the water, his eyes as distant as the sea itself, a tiny frown marring his brow. It’s longing; John recognizes that now. He’s longing.

A trace of John’s palm against his shoulder has Roger looking up, his face softening, his eyes as blue and clear as the Caribbean. “I love you,” he murmurs with a soft smile, kissing John’s chest right above his heart.

But of course morning comes eventually.

It’s grey when it does. John sits up from the pile of quilts and furs, turning to look out the window at the steely coldness of it.

Brian is still asleep, his curls tangled with the white sheets. Roger is tucked up against him, his nose pressed into Brian’s neck, always seeking out warmth even in sleep. John is loathe to leave them; he wants nothing more than to curl into their warmth and doze the day away.

But Freddie is silhouetted against the dawn light.

He slips out of bed silently, leaving his two bedmates curled together. He throws on one of the heavy dressing gowns at the foot of the bed, tiptoeing up behind Freddie silently and resting his elbows against the balcony rails, their shoulders pressed together as they breathe the salty air together.

“The navy is moving,” Freddie murmurs to him. “I can feel it.”

John turns to look at him, taking in his profile: the sharp line of his jaw, the plush fullness of his mouth, the dark charcoal shadows of his eyes. His brow is furrowed slightly as he looks out at the shadows of ships rising up through the marine fog, the _Special_ bracketing them on one side and Sheffield’s ship on the other.

“New ships coming in,” Freddie continues. “Guns in the water. The weight of them—they leave an odd film on the waves. They taste coppery.”

“You can feel them like that?”

Freddie turns to look at him then, startled as if he didn’t even notice John was there. All at once he smiles, but John knows him well enough now to recognize how his eyes are still pinched at the corners; how his mouth is tight with tension.

“Freddie,” he murmurs, shaking his head slightly. “It’s okay.”

“I know that,” Freddie says quickly. “Darling, of course I do.”

“We’re going to be alright.”

Freddie’s smile falters.

“We’re going to be okay,” he says, picking Freddie’s hand off the rail. His fingers are cold, and John cups them in both of his palms. “We’ll look out for each other. The _Special_ is a terror on her own, and _Queen Elizabeth_ was the pride of the Royal Navy for a reason. Together we’re stronger than anything they throw at us.”

“They have an awful lot to throw,” Freddie says, his smile falling away. His eyes are honest all at once, large and vulnerable. “I just—if something were to happen to you all I couldn’t bear it. Do you know that? Getting Roger back was one thing, and it nearly killed me. I don’t think I could do it again, let alone three times.”

“Nothing is going to happen,” John murmurs.

“Don’t make me lose all three of you,” Freddie whispers, looking him dead in the eye.

John can’t stop himself; he reaches forward to pull Freddie close to him, and Freddie goes with the motion easily, leaning forward into the shelter of John’s body, their chests pressed together and their breath coming in sync.

John isn’t sure which of them leaned forward first. He just knows that when their lips meet there are no fireworks or sparks; instead he’s filled simply with the safe knowledge that goes with homecoming. He relaxes into it, cupping Freddie’s jaw and leading him closer, the feeling of peace sinking into his core until he feels like he could laugh from it; from the way it’s expanding and growing and breathing.

“Nothing is going to happen,” he whispers when they finally part, their mouths mere breaths apart, close enough that he feels Freddie’s sigh as if it were his own.

He hears shifting behind them, and a moment later Roger is there, stepping behind Freddie and hooking his chin over his shoulder to gaze at John with warm blue eyes, still shaking off the haze of sleep. He ducks forward briefly to peck John on the lips, a slow smile spreading across his face that John can’t help but mirror.

“Good morning,” John murmurs to him.

“Morning,” he answers, ducking to nose at Freddie’s jaw, and Freddie huffs when Roger hits a ticklish spot. “What are you two doing out here, then?”

“Worrying needlessly, I think,” John replies.

“Mmh, we can’t have that. It’s too early still for worrying.”

“How you manage to be so flippant about all this, I’m not quite sure,” Freddie says, genuine anxiety betraying the dryness of his tone.

“It’s a talent,” Roger replies. “What do you think? Will it rub off on you if I try hard enough?”

“If you try hard enough to rub off?” John repeats.

Roger grins at him, just about to reply when the sun breaks over the waves, cannon fire beginning in the distance.

Behind them, Brian sits up in bed, suddenly wide awake as his eyes fix on the horizon.

John meets Roger’s eyes once more. “It’s time, then,” he murmurs.

Roger only nods.

They scramble to get ready. All the cannonballs are neatly stacked, the powder ready to be lit, everyone in position as the world holds its breath.

In the end it ends before it even begins.

It feels good to be back at his ship’s helm in a way he’d never expected. It’s not satisfying in and of itself; the same nerves are doubling back and settling on his shoulders—but it feels better now, somehow. Even with the weight of all that’s happened, between a solemn nod from Harris, a grim smile from Ratty, the warmth of Roger at his side—somehow it feels right. It feels right to be back in control.

“Let’s end this, huh?” Roger says into his ear, his breath hot. “End it once and for all.”

John nods, pressing back briefly into the warmth of Roger’s palm at the small of his back.

Beside them people are running to and fro across the deck of the _Special_. He can see Freddie leaning against the side rail, the waves rushing up that much higher to greet him, the wind tousling his hair. Brian is at the helm, and he looks up just as John turns to see him. When their eyes meet he smiles.

It’s the _Dauntless_ in no-man’s-land; it’s only right that it’s that ship, the ship that started it all; the ship where Roger and John first met, where all of this began. It’s only right.

The Armada, reduced to a mere shadow of its former power and fighting its own battles with the Navy, hangs back.

Maybe the Navy was waiting for them to step in. John isn’t sure anymore. All he knows is that it’s one ship against both of theirs, and for once their enemy doesn’t stand a chance.

From his right he hears clanking as the _Special’s_ gun hatches are hoisted open in unison.

“Crystal will back us up if we need it,” Roger murmurs into his ear. “The entirety of the Cross is already ready to go. One word from him and we’ll have every ship at our disposal.”

“Will we need it?” John murmurs, gripping the wheel that much tighter in his grip.

Roger’s lips ghost against his cheek. “I highly doubt it,” he murmurs, a smile in his voice.

The _Dauntless_ is already nearly upon them, the _Special_ turning ever so slightly closer to the wind to flank her other side. They’re going to blow it out of the water; one pass and the entire ship will be a wreck. John can already tell.

Something doesn’t feel right.

Ratty clears his throat. “In ten…”

“On your word,” John replies, but it doesn’t feel right.

Something isn’t right.

He looks to the other ship and Freddie is already meeting his gaze, eyes wide.

John frowns. He scans the other ship rapidly, his eyes flitting from crewmember to crewmember all the way up to the helm—the captain, the first mate—

“Hold fire,” he cries immediately.

Ratty turns to him, eyes wide. “What?”

“Hold fire,” he says even louder, watching as heads turn to him rapidly. On the _Special_ he can see Freddie give the same command _,_ the sails loosening rapidly as they cut their speed. “Hold fire and come about. We’re calling a parlay.”

“With the _navy?_ ” Ratty asks incredulously.

He turns, eyes rapidly searching for Roger’s—and there he is, comfortingly warm and confused and trusting. And John can only say one thing.

“It’s my dad.”

It all fades so rapidly into the past; as rapidly as the Navy disappears from the horizon, the last ships of the Armada running for the hills, their fleet all but decimated by the Navy and the Cross combined. It fades as rapidly as the call goes out to the Brethren Court, the eagles flying and the smoke signals blazing as Roger prepares to host the first meeting of the court in well over a decade, his talking points prepared for the moment when he’ll face his father again and depose him for good—not with a pistol, but with the words that have always been his greatest strength.

It all fades so quickly that all John can do is blink.

Roger hadn’t wanted him to go, but John has never been happier about a decision in his life.

His dad had been alone when he’d boarded the _Dauntless_. The crew had stepped aside to let him pass; they hadn’t even bothered to strip him of weapons, and when John had entered the stateroom off the Captain’s quarters he’d still been shrouded in the dark fabric of Roger’s coat, pistols and sword at his side, his hair loose and tangled.

None of it had mattered. His dad hugged him just like he always had. Some things don’t change.

It’s sunset again; sunset, and the _Special_ is sailing beside them. He can see Freddie still leaning against the side rails, Brian’s first mate steering and politely pretending she doesn’t see her captain leaning beside the new stranger on deck and murmuring a little too softly and a little too closely into his ear.

Roger is leaning against their own side rail, looking right back at them. Even from this distance it seems like they’re having a conversation; Brian leans in and laughs something, Freddie grins, and a moment later a smile spreads across Roger’s own face. John watches for only a moment before sidling up beside him, his hands bracketing Roger’s own on the rails as he leans his chin against his shoulder.

“Don’t tell me that’s some kind of ocean magic,” John murmurs.

And Roger turns to him, as radiant as anything, his eyes ever-so-bright and his smile blinding. “I’m just happy,” he breathes, and John can feel it radiating off of him, can taste it.

It’s a long ways back to the Isla de los Muertos; a long way until they’ll be able to resettle the fleet, assess the damage—until they’ll be able to find a place to dock the _Special_ for good and welcome Brian back to land—until they’ll all be able to settle a little together before they head back out to sea, as all things do.

And John doesn’t know where they’ll go, but he knows they have the world at their feet.

“I love you,” he whispers, and Roger turns to kiss his jaw sweetly.

“You can still come home,” his father said gently. “If you come with us now, we can pretend none of it ever happened. We’ll pardon you, the Cross can go free, we won’t pursue any of the vessels and everyone can go on their way. The Commodore is already making plans to hunt down the rest of the Armada. This can still have a happy ending, John.”

It’s the same question, over and over. It’s the same dilemma.

“I’ll find a way to write to you guys,” John said quietly. “Even if it’s through the Navy itself, I’ll find a way. I’ll find a way to tell you that I’m alright.”

His father sighed. “Are you sure about this? We just want you to be okay—to be _safe._ Roger is a good lad,” he added. “He was a good citizen before he was taken. It’s tragic. I know that you’ve always wished to find him again, but sometimes some things are best left in the past, John. Do you really want to follow that thread? He’s a traitor.”

And John had looked up then—looked up from the raw mess he was making of the calluses he was nervously picking, the weight of Freddie’s necklace comforting against his chest—and met his gaze, his own eyes wet, not with sorrow but with a love he couldn’t even begin to quantify and a hope he himself didn’t quite understand. And it had been answer enough.

Months later, the Brethren Court meets. Captain Taylor had taken his stripping of leadership remarkably well, with the court arguing that he could no longer bully the world into doing his bidding with only the sorry remains of an armada and enemies in every corner. He hadn’t been quite as quiet upon witnessing his leadership be given instead to his son, but Roger had taken the hurled insults in stride.

A week later the last ship of the Armada had gone down in a storm.

If Roger was upset, he barely showed it. He took the news with barely the batting of an eyelash, his mouth pressed into a solemn line. After all, there had to be nine pirate lords—always nine, and with Taylor not having left a clear successor and his firstborn already holding a position on the court, his title naturally had to fall to his daughter.

They just had to find her first.

But that would come after; there were plots and charts on Roger’s desk to prove it. They still have time.

“Hear these words, for I have a story,” Roger whispered, the moon shining in through his quarters in the Isla de los Muertos, the salt heady in the air, and somewhere above him Brian had giggled.

Freddie is somewhere to John’s left. He can sense him there even if he can’t see him, and when he reaches out slender fingers weave between his own. It had been a long day full of meeting and planning, and it feels good to be near to the three of them once more.

“Once upon a time there was a war, and four boys lived through it,” Roger continues.

John rolls closer to Freddie until he can locate his throat in the dark, pressing his lips to it reverently and marveling at the way Freddie’s breath catches. He hears Roger huff out a laugh.

“And after the war was over and the truces were made and the sea remained untamed, the chaos returning to the water as all things do, after all that—after it was over, they lived for themselves.”

Brian lets out a burst of laughter. “Is that our happy ending?”

“Not happy enough for you?”

“Anything’s happy when the three of you are involved.”

Roger coos under his breath. “Oh, you…”

“Oh, get off—”

The mattress bounces as they wrestle, and John can only let out a laugh against Freddie’s throat. The moon escapes from behind a cloud, casting the room in blues and silvers, Freddie’s skin an endless expanse of lavender below him, and he can’t breath around all the love in his chest.

“John,” Freddie breathes, a smile in his voice.

“Yeah?”

“Come here.”

And John does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, tying up all these ends in only one chapter? Not easy. But here we are! I hope that that answers everything! 
> 
> I had a near death experience when I was around six years old or so, where I passed out and when I opened my eyes I was on a very long, very foggy beach. That death scene thing may be slightly influenced by that! 
> 
> Please let me know what you think about this thing! It was a joy to finally get to work on it and I had a lot of fun <3 thank you so much for all your support! You folks are the best :-)

**Author's Note:**

> There is now art for this fic! Please go check it out and spread the love! www.instagram.com/p/B8AeBq6hXlp/?igshid=zph7qoc3ecnb


End file.
